rackforms

One possible alternative/addition is what I've done for my Podcast app, SkipCast (http://skipcast.net/).

I worked with Blubrry to create a new donate tag:

http://create.blubrry.com/resources/powerpress/advanced-tool...

If the feed supports this tag, a simple donate link appears in SkipCast and when tapped, takes you directly to the donate page. This tag can be supported by any Podcast client.

To me this is a clear win-win situation, though the feature depends heavily on adoption of simple, easy to use and deploy donation services, and of course the user supplying the tag.

One good example of the donate model working is the Crate and Crowbar podcast (PC Gaming). They created a Patreon and literally shut it down after a few months. The reason: they got hundreds in weekly, recurring donations and simply didn't need that much money.

Donations can work, and could be a huge boon to smaller, independent Podcasters. This could in turn ensure a healthy ecosystem that's more resilient to monolithic entities.

Goodness, no offense taken, it's a completely valid point.

The price point deserves a more thorough write up. For now:

I released SkipCast last July at $2.99. Considering I had video playback, advanced audio effects (including skip silence), and lots more, I thought this was a solid fit for the current marketplace.

The result: In the next 5 months I'd get just 6 sales, 3 of which were from family members (thanks mom!). Total app store revenue: $18.

Of course I did my best to market the little bugger, and even added features as the result of partnerships with the aforementioned RawVoice. Press releases went out, Nada.

And so after 6 months, out of sheer curiosity I went totally free and saw my downloads SKYROCKET to ... 5-6 a day.

--

At this point then I had a choice. I ain't getting sales and I ain't getting free downloads.

And so I did what anyone with a lick of pride would. Charge real money. I literally did it to not get sales, as I wasn't getting them anyway. At least this way I'm not whoring myself out. Honestly, for how many hours I put into this project it felt wonderful to jack that price up!

The kicker: Since the price increase I've finally had enough sales to cover my developer fee, and I've only recently renewed for another year.

The reason? I think it's easy to see why.

For one, it immediately sets you apart in the app store. You're scrolling around and see a $24 app and you're bound to take notice.

Of course most will scoff, but, apparently, enough have not. It at least gets someone on my app store page.

Second, I make specific mention of the price in the very first line of the description, and later, actually mention the fact that I'm trying something different.

Look, the bottom line is in my naiveté I thought that in a potential marketplace of 1 billion users there was room enough for 15 or so Podcast clients. Turns our I was wrong. I can't control that, but what I can do is add my voice to the ranks who should stand up to cheep bastards who expect all software to be free. You want SkipCast, you'll have to pay for it.

Man it feels good to say that : )

Interesting discussion! I'm the author of SkipCast (http://www.skipcast.net), an iOS client that worked with http://www.rawvoice.com/ to implement an in-app, direct donate feature.

If your Podcast feed contains the tag:

<rawvoice:donate type="text/html" href="URL HERE">Label</rawvoice:donate>

SkipCast displays an in-app link to that location with the text 'Donate'. Uptake for this feature has been quite positive.

I'd love to expand support for this to other systems and tags. It's an interesting little feature, and as an avid Podcast listener as well as app developer, hope content creators find success with it. It's quite literally the least we can do as developers.

Finally: Quick shout out to KATG, I've spend hours staring at your cover art as it was one of my favorite test feeds used when developing the app!

A very solid piece of advice on the disavow links, and very much acted upon a few years ago (of course I still maintain a close watch on links!)

Also, to another reply a bit further down, I actually started fresh with a new domain about 6 months after the initial penalty, and used 301 redirects from the old (penalized) site to the new.

I did this to reduce confusion from my existing users, as their was no reason why they should have to retype or bookmark a new domain name. Sure I was going through a very rough patch, but my users should not have to as well!

I had a simple bit of logic that said if you were coming from the old domain, to pop up a message say hi, we had a name change. Not ideal, but that's the best I could come up with.

Little did I know that the 301 actually transferred the penalty to the new site. Shortly after launching I was hit with a second penalty, and the thought of having to change domain names again was just...it's just wrong. The inconvenience and confusion this creates for users is still being felt to this day. I routinely get emails from users of the first domain asking if I'm the same company.

So yeah, I've been trying here, but my lucks been pretty bad : )

Apologies for the long posts chaps, but here's a genuine riddle I'm hoping someone with black hat SEO experience/knowledge can help answer for me:

A quick spot of history: I started my business in 2007. Organic traffic grew steadily until 2012 when I suffered a Penguin penalty that promptly wiped me off the map.

Until that point I had reached a steady 1 or 2 spot in organic rankings for the keywords that exactly described my product and service, which, considering the market I'm in had around 12 competitors (at that time), and considering my site was built for humans, had no keyword stuffing, and so on, felt, well, justified.

At very minimum if you were in the market for what my product did a visit to my site was a great experience. The site was fast, easy to read, well laid out, the product rocked, and so on.

I stress those points as the penalty left me reeling. I had heard about SEO before sure, but considered it a gross exercise in unnatural manipulation -- I would never go down that road. Hell, it took me months to realize I had a "penalty", and then several more to figure out it was from this thing named after an arctic fish.

And yet here I was penalized, and where my question comes in. I have a few small pieces of information that may be relevant.

About a year before my penalty I started a blog covering general product announcements and other items of interest to programmers. These items almost never had links, and if they did, would be directly related to the subject mater. As a concrete example, I wrote a post about learning SSE in assembly, and linked to an Intel blog post on the same subject.

However, I did allow comments on this blog at first, and exactly two times I logged in to find spam comments linking to discount shoes or handbags. These comments were promptly removed, and, after that second time, I disabled comments altogether.

Fast forward two years into the penalty (yes, two years in!). It's mid-2014 and I've been researching what happened. Turns out at the time of my initial penalty I had well over a million "back links" pointing to my site. All were from incredibly shady sites. Chinese language pages with literally hundreds of "form posts", 99% filled with absolute gibberish text. But within that mass of garbage would be a link to my site, the homepage no less, advertising discount Louis Vuitton handbags. The link would generally be along the lines of (broken HTML intentional) href = "formboss.net" > Discount Handbags </a

At first the scam seems obvious: If my site had links pointing to knockoff handbag retailers, then my high Google rank would transfer over...wait...huh?

See, that's where I get stuck. I see the individual pieces, but I cannot piece the scam together in any way that makes scene. The Chinese sites that linked to me, who in the world would be reading those? Further, they linked to my home page. Short of being hacked (which I never was), how would a home page link make sense?

The short-lived links on my blog: Sure, they linked to outside sources, and so conceivably my high rank would valuable, but why the 1,000,000+ inbound links to my site?

That’s the part that keeps me awake at night. The thing I had control over, the outbound links -- Zapped ‘em immediately. The damage clearly came from those inbound links, but they make no sense to me.

What was the game I played for?

One may be tempted to call this Hodge Theaters syndrome.

My AdWords account was suspended a few days ago because of, I presume at least, this: https://www.rackforms.com/rackforms-express-for-wordpress.ph...

A popup in AdWords says I've violated "Unsupported content free desktop software". RackForms Express is a free version of my flagship product, that one actually being advertised.

You're feelings may very well differ, but if I've clicked on a link, organic or ad, and I get offered a solution to the problem I was seeking an answer for, that seem like a pretty good deal. If nothing else, this differentiation may well be the difference between getting a sale or not.

The appeal process is to fill out this form: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/contact/advertise_s..., but from my reading in Google's product forms this doesn't always work. If this fails, the end result will be to remove free software from the net.

We're all for blocking those horrible "Download Firefox" ads, but this change, and the resulting aftermath, feels...I don't know, dangerous. If the end result is small companies like mine pulling valuable resources from the web, I think we all loose.

Fingers crossed my appeal goes through.

Absolutely! Please do keep in mind no system is perfect, 100% reliability is a dream we all strive to attain, and even with Parse, I've read several reports on this very thread of instances of less than perfect reliability, iffy technical support, and so on. Anecdotal sure, but still.

That said: the app sends basic notifications when in-app, user-initiated events of interest occur.

The server code is PHP, based off of this fantastic little tutorial: http://www.raywenderlich.com/32963/apple-push-notification-s...

I modified and use the code in the simplest possible way:

I created the API layer using my wonderful form builder software (https://www.rackforms.com). Yup, it's form software flexible enough to write endpoints. Check it out : )

The app sends simple GET requests to my server, which are in turn handled by the API job. If a notification is required, the API INSERT's a record into a MySQL table called push_queue.

The magic, I suppose, happens with a constantly running PHP script called push.php. This guy's monitored by a simple cron job that checks for its running status every minute. if it's down, cron automatically restarts the script. The notifications are not time-sensitive that 1 minute delays are a deal breaker, and of course any sent during that time are handled automatically when the script restarts.

APN Feedback is handled by a second one-the-hour cron job, which calls a simple script called feedback.php. A touch of code was added to deal with the core user's device token being removed for "followers" of that user.

Three Key Takeaways:

1. The entire server setup part took me about 5 hours, API code (which we'd need to write regardless) not withstanding. The biggest hurdle was the cron stuff, I shall never forget cron -v cron! Using a third-party service would have been almost the same time, I'd imagine. The best part is future projects will literally be counted in the minutes for start to finish notification server duties.

2. I got to use a language I adore (PHP), and learned a bunch with others I was quite new too (shell scripting, cron, etc).

3. Finally: No app is guaranteed success. I know many of these services have/had! generous free tiers, but after my first app (http://www.skipcast.net) and its frankly lousy performance, fool me once indeed.

If, by some miracle, this new app gains traction, sure, I'll consider a third party. Until then, I'll do it my self thank you very much.

In all -- a wonderful experience that I'm keen to tweak and learn more from at deployment time.

100% agree. Building my first notification-based app right now and Parse seemed like the obvious and best choice. Thing is, after a bit of thinking something felt...off. Not with the service, but off with the idea of attaching this small little project to something so...out of my control.

I dug around the net and found a working solution I could install on my own server, and now that's exactly what I've got: The experience of doing this on my own, the flexibility to grow as needed, and the code to implement again and again without needing anyone or anything else.

Building apps these days is a massive gamble for small guys like me. We often spend dozens of hours with little to no possibility of return.

Any action I can take that reduces stress points and increase my knowledge base, (and this would have been a massive stress point) I'll take.

Truly gorgeous imagery and formatting. Kind of sad to think many will experience this on a mobile device. These images really same alive on my big old monitor : )

A great point. I'm actually running a holiday promotion right now, the standard price of our self-hosted package is indeed $599. Oddly enough, even with that pricing the ratio remains consistent. At least half of my users consistently choose the purchase outright option.

No doubt in my particular space other factors figure: For example, to run the self-hosted package requires a web server, a higher barrier of entry, perhaps, than just a machine capable of running Photoshop. It may also be that the cloud service provides a full hosting package complete with cPanel, phpMyAdmin, etc, negating the need to have a standard web hosting service.

I suppose my point is I try and make both packages a great value proposition from a price/feature standpoint. Believe me when I say my life would be easier if I only offered one, but in the end customer choice trumps all.

I find Adobe's current model strongly distasteful as both a consumer and producer of software.

As a consumer, the cost of ownership is now slightly to significantly higher over the total lifetime of the software, depending on how often you upgrade. Cost aside, for me it simply doesn't "feel" right to rent software.

As a producer I've put my money where my mouth is. My companies software used to be purchase only (https://www.rackforms.com), though we did add a subscription model around the same time Adobe made the switch. However, I did not, nor will I ever, remove the customers ability to purchase outright.

Just because recurring revenue is good for me doesn't mean it's right for my users. In fact, my "purchase outright" option remains more popular.

I believe if Adobe actually gave users a choice they're data wold reflect mine. They've certainly lost me as a customer until they change course.

Thank you for the understanding, and my heart goes out to you as well for your penalties. In a more just world real users would decide what succeeds and what does not.

My defense of the current site from a content perspective is simple: just go to it (www.rackforms.com).

I feel very strongly the look (clean professional), layout (easy to navigate), and technical details (fast, fully responsive, etc) are not causing it to be penalized from a content perspective.

My reasoning for why it should rank is also simple: it used to rank high, and none of that was an accident. I've always followed common sense methodology when creating it, such as creating content for humans, not search bots.

Never the less, since the penalty I've happily made dozens of changes, most of which were suggestions from kind and well meaning SEO folks -- none of them made a difference. Not a single one.

Conclusion -- my issue isn't nor has it ever been content, it's links.

Of course the irony is the vast majority of changes I made were to please search engine bots, not humans. Google has always said this is the opposite of what we should be doing.

For example, one guy suggested I used to word 'form' too much on my home page, and Google may consider this keyword stuffing. And so I pruned it from 23 to 12. Trouble is I sell web form software, and let's just say changes I made were, in many cases, a stretch -- many sounded decisively nonhuman. Who and what am I helping at that point? Google bot is clearly smarter than that. The kicker: the current page 1 site used the word 'form' 43 times. It's just silly voo-doo at this point, and no one except Google knows what the hell they're talking about.

Here's why this is all a bit scary: as link-penalized webmasters poke around the edges and make such changes, we're getting further away from a site that used to be looked upon favorably by Google from a content perspective.

The reason I cite "it used to be good enough" is common sense. Yes we can always improve our site and we should be: but a link penalty, mine especially, is so thorough and so unrecoverable so far, that making loads of other changes will very likely hurt more than help.

But again, just visit my site, visit the page 1 and 2's, and then consider I'm page 15 or lower. I have no doubt my site, should it's ranking be restored, would be a delight for Google users to visit.

Didn't ask for it? If I've learned one thing from this whole affair it's how understanding and kind complete strangers can be. Your feedback is hugely appropriated.

That said, a few thoughts:

1. The link based penalty stems from the fact the traffic drops correlate exactly with Penguin release dates. Also, the "official" volunteers and other good folks over at the Google Webmaster forms came to the same conclusion. Before those exact dates I had ranked on page 1 for "php web form software", and page 1 or 2 for "web form software", since mid-2008.

To that end, you're 100% correct the market is tough, but we're a very specialized form builder, made especially for developers.

As far as deserving Page 1 - Google used to think so for several years, as my product is pretty darn great if you need flexible form software. We have four versions, two of which are free, covering both self-hosted and SaaS models. No one even comes close to offering such a wide variety of solutions.

In short, if you need form software and you find my site you're guaranteed not to be disappointed. If nothing else you're able to choose between two pretty awesome free versions, something no one else offers. I'm also ecstatic to answer questions and help users out, even if they don't buy or use my software. I would think this would be of high value to Google -- and it certainly used to be before the penalty.

As far as the site recommendations: I'm taking these to heart for sure, though I have to say, the previously mentioned Google Webmaster forums -- the current site is a direct result of working with them for over 3 months, making the exact same types of changes and improvements. Nothing, and I mean nothing, worked.

I didn't know at the time, but it was recently stated by John Mueller from Google that a Penguin recovery is simply not possible until they refresh and release a new version of the Penguin algorithm.

So at the end of the day, sadly, (and please do not take this as dismissive as you bet I'll be making changes): my problem is not content or structure, it's that darn link penalty.

All the while, and again, I'm not sure who this benefits.

Option 2: spammy links elsewhere pointed to my site.

And I do mean spammy, as in pure spam. Almost all came from foreign language sites, and would be in the form of mysite.com as the link and Louis Vuitton|Fancy Watch Brand|Viagra|Etc as the display text. At no point was my site ever compromised.

The kicker is it's unknown if these links were actually helping my site at some point, and the penalty was simply a reflection of the links being devalued.

@vdaniuk - Totally with ya, but I've actually done that already. In fact, a 301 actually transferred the penalty from the old site to new back in 2012!

I'm literally the worst SEO ever, but in my defense I used a 301 to create a smooth transition for my existing users (which number in the thousands). I had no idea that a 301 would be used against me like that.

I guess from my point of view then, the objections to changing brand/identity are:

a. My brand is something I work hard on, and changing it is confusing for my users, and difficult and time-consuming from a business standpoint (SSL, taxes, etc). What's more...

b. My deepest apologies if I'm wrong on this, but I've heard that even if I do change brands, Google has actually made it clear they may follow webmasters who've been penalized, not just the domains they ran.

Now it potentially becomes this bizarre cloak and dagger world of hiding from Google, something I'm simply not comfortable with. I'm proud of my past.

c. There's been, and I hate that I know this stuff but I do follow the topic closely now, but I've heard that new web site remain in something called the sandbox for much longer now. God I hate that I even said that as I deplore SEO stuff, but starting a new site simply is no guarantee that rank will be restored. Not to mention the aforementioned costs of setting up a storefront, building the site, possibly being targeted for a new penalty for who I am, and so on.

But yes, at some point it may very well come down to starting a new site...again.

Google's contributions to making the web safer, faster, and generally more awesome cannot go upraised.

But as a small business owner under a rather crushing Google link penalty since 2011 I thought I offer my perspective.

First, it's important to note my penalty was absolutely not of my creation — I never bought, sold or traded links, and followed Google Web Master guidelines to the letter.

Unfortunately loads of spammy links I never created came home to roost in 2011 and I've been penalized ever since.

I've done my best to clean up but so far no relief has come.

So that out of the way my points:

1. People are certainly free to choose a different search engine and yes, plenty of alternatives exist. The problem is we don't appear to be using them anymore.

Although I'm just one example, last month's traffic numbers are quite telling:

328 hits from Google, 2 from Yahoo, and 1 immediate bounce from Bing.

Of the 328 Google hits, only 10 were for keyword searches. The rest we all for direct variants of my company name (rack forms, rack forms, and rack form).

The kicker: On Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo I'm page two or higher for keyword searches, on Google page 15 or lower.

Please let that sink in for a moment: despite being buried 15 pages deep in Google, I still got more keyword hits from them than I did from being a top result in three other search engines combined!

It was not like this just a few years years ago and it's frankly quite concerning.

Here's the rub: If you're a Google user, which over 98% of my potential users appear to be, because of my penalty you'll simply never know I exist, and if you're in the market for kick ass web form software that kinda stinks for you. I have a fantastic product!

Despite this living hell of a penalty I still believe in Google, and absolutely believe they mean well. I just really, really hope they can figure out a way to prevent spam without getting guys like me caught up in the middle of the fray.

For my business Google's market share is no longer academic, it's a tough reality that's becoming very difficult to ignore.