Since I went ahead and did a recap of some of the stuff that sucked in 2007, I might as well write my predictions for 2008:

1. John Chow will quit blogging.

Long-time JohnChow.com readers will remember a time when he was the only author and most of the content on his blog was insightful (albeit evil) advice for making money online. At that time, it was a great blog. Recently, however, it seems that the blog is ruled by guest authors – even the $450 ReviewMe reviews are outsourced. (If I wanted to read stuff from n00bs, I’d surf around on blogspot.)

Unfortunately, I think this trend will continue through 2008. John Chow will post less and less until even his dinner party posts are written by someone else. (Good for him, though, because he established a business where he makes $20k per month with what is mostly user-generated content. And unlike Myspace, it’s not a lurking spot for sexual predators.)

2. ProBlogger.net will get moved to AverageBlogger.net

In a move similar to what’s happening to JohnChow.com, ProBlogger.net will get overrun with guest authors who post the same rehashed information that I’ve read countless times (or just plain common sense stuff.)

This will force the FCC to intervene and enforce international categorization laws which will understandably demote ProBlogger down to AverageBlogger level. (Let’s just hope it stays above n00b-blogger.net.)

3. Google will make tons of money.

While the majority of bloggers will continue to talk about how much they hate Google due to paid link debates, SERPs fluctuations, or monopolization, it won’t matter. Google will make tons of money, as usual, and laugh about it all the way to the bank.

That’s because all this useless drivel about Google being unfair just reinforces Google’s position as a big business which won’t be challenged by these webmasters who have no business sense. (Google not cracking down on paid links would be like a supermarket owner saying “hello shoplifter, please come in and steal my stuff! I welcome you into my store!”)

4. Shoemoney fights Chuck Liddell

Shoemoney has been posting plenty of UFC stuff on his blog, and this year he’s going all out with the launch of Fighters.com (a social network and other cool stuff for the mixed martial arts community.)

Well, what better publicity stunt for bringing together UFC fans and internet marketers than a charity event where Shoemoney goes in the octagon with Chuck Liddell? Shoe can skip the triathlon this year and focus on the fight. He might as well, I mean, it worked out fine for Rocky Balboa and Hulk Hogan…

5. ZacJohnson.com will take over as the most useful ‘make money online’ blog.

While John Chow’s website will still be popular and attract tons of loyal followers in 2008, people that want to learn something (instead of suck up to someone) will gravitate towards Zac Johnson’s super affiliate blog.

Why? First, he has enough initial publicity and name recognition that he’s believable. Second, he has the fancy blog theme. Third, he writes a lot of useful guides as well as useful tips and tricks. Fourth, he might just be Spiderman.

Believe it or not, those five things will happen in 2008.

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If you’re not careful when you’re messing around bad neighborhoods, someone might just attempt to bust a cap on yo ass.

That or get you a Google penalty. You can decide for yourself which is worse.

But there is a new type of neighborhood watch out there. It’s called the Bad Neighborhood Text Link Tool. Instead of watching for crooks, burglars, and sexual predators, they protect you from the most heinous of villains – black hat webmasters!

While other webmasters blindly link to these impure websites, you are wise to the hidden text generic Viagra links in the footer. You refrain from linking to them and in return, you get to survive another day in King Google’s land of the internet.

So if you’re buying or selling links through TNX or doing sketchy link exchanges with someone from Nigeria, do a background check first.

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Everyone is always going on about “the next Google” or “the Google killer” or whatever. The website in question is usually some new search engine that has some bugs to work out, or it’s their own project that they think is the greatest thing ever. And claiming something is the “Google killer” will get some buzz, right?

But everyone is missing out. See, the next Google is SearchMash. No question about it; this is a fact, not a guess.

How am I so sure? Because SearchMash is Google!

That’s right, SearchMash is owned by Google. It’s where they test out cool new features before using them on Google.com. This way the regular Google users don’t get freaked out. So if want to see some of the new innovations for Google, look at SearchMash first. Chances are, any new Google innovations will be on there first.

Don’t believe me? Just check the whois data.

By the way, it’s a cool search engine. It’s Google 2.0 you could say.

So next time some wannabe webmaster says they’re developing the Google killer, tell them to get a life, and then tell them to take a look at SearchMash.

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Another good blog post I was checking out…

It’s from Shoemoney, and it’s all about Google cracking down on people doing some sort of arbitrage through Adwords.

See the full story at:

http://www.shoemoney.com/…nuke-arbitragers/

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Still paying less than $10 per click in your Google Adwords account?

Either you have landing pages that Google happens to like, or they haven’t gotten to you yet! Apparently Google is on another one of thier rampages to improve the quality of their website by destroying the businesses of its paying customers. It’s no surprise to see this “Google Slap” as many have called it.

I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard about it yet. But basically, if your Adwords landing page is not up to G’s standards, your minimum bid will probably go from $0.03 to $5.00 or more!

What are people going to do?

Build MFA sites!

No, not the numerous “made for adsense” websites, these are the next breed – “made for adwords” websites! Complete with extraneous content and longer, uninteresting sales letters. And of course, no more squeeze pages with nothing more than an opt-in form, which were becoming very popular.

Although this may be a good thing for searchers if it works, we have to wonder how long it will take to work. It wasn’t long before I saw articles about how to slap Google back. These articles and reports show you the special tricks that will allow you to get your same ads back into Adwords on the cheap. These are the kind of tricks that will just force Google to do more work to achieve quality results.

Or maybe Google has something else up their sleeves…

They are rumored to be launching a new CPA network soon. Perhaps they want you in that instead, which could give Google a bigger percentage of your revenue…

By the way, here is some more info I found on slapping Google:

I Gotta Tell You

Googleicious

And a piece about the new CPA network:

ValueClick Killer

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