About Traffick
Traffick began way back in 1998 as a humble “guide to web portals” called PortalHub, the brainchild of web developer Cory Kleinschmidt. These were heady days when the stock prices of Yahoo and Excite would leap by $20 in a single day.
We knew that we were in store for great things, but no one knew exactly how it would unfold. Portals were creating useful tools that were allowing people to communicate, to learn and to conduct research in new and magical ways. Oh, and did I mention that everything was free?
In early 1999, Cory met Andrew Goodman online, and the two decided to reinvent PortalHub with a snappier name, and Traffick.com was born. Why Traffick? Back then, as it is now, the most trafficked sites were the big players that we studied and thought would revolutionize the world of information. Web traffic, sometimes measured in the now-archaic term “eyeballs,” were the currency of the New Economy, as was giddily chronicled by burgeoning print magazines like the Industry Standard.
When the dot com boom went bust in early 2000 after investors started to demand real, sustainable business models that would lead to profitability, we kept the faith and never wavered from our belief that portals and search engines would soon parlay their audiences into real companies.
Now, we’re charting the rise of search engines with a special eye toward the business side and how search engine marketing is changing how everything and anything is sold and marketed using the internet. We were there when pay-per-click advertising gained credibility and helped save free content online thanks to Yahoo’s Overture unit (then called GoTo.com) and Google’s AdWords program.
What began as a hobby has turned into gainful employment, and we feel fortunate to be part of this new world. What will the future hold? We don’t know, but keep reading Traffick for our unique brand of commentary and prognostication!
Meet the Traffickers
Andrew Goodman, Editor
Andrew co-founded Traffick in September 1999 and can be summed up as a “political scientist turned internet analyst.” In other words, he’s been trafficking in Big Ideas since Jerry Yang was knee high to a Commodore PET. Currently Andrew is editor for Traffick and president of Page Zero Media, a search engine marketing firm in Toronto.
His articles and insights about internet navigation technology, online communities and the evolution of new media are now widely cited and published in books, magazines and newspapers.
Andrew is considered by many to be one of the world’s foremost Google AdWords experts. His popular Google AdWords guide, 21 Ways to Maximize ROI with Google AdWords, is an e-book published in 2002 that has sold over 6,000 copies. It has been updated each year to reflect the latest updates to AdWords.
His latest book, Winning Results with Google AdWords, is a complete guide to AdWords published by McGraw Hill in August 2005. It is designed to serve as a thorough introduction to pay-per-click advertising as well as an in-depth guide for power users.
As founder and principal of Page Zero Media, Andrew and his co-horts help businesses of all sizes achieve measurable results through pay-per-click search engine advertising. Page Zero specializes in Google AdWords optimization, but utilizes a wide variety of other search engine marketing methods to deliver results.
Andrew is married to Carolyn and lives in Toronto. For more information, visit Page Zero’s website.
Cory Kleinschmidt, Publisher
Cory Kleinschmidt co-founded Traffick.com with Andrew in September 1999 and has supervised its design and content management as well as writing for the site.
Cory’s deep toolset includes competencies as a manager of growing software development teams, web design chops, business planning, and web programming. For Page Zero clients, Cory oversees a diverse set of services including full-scale web architecture and development, usability advising, landing page testing, analytics tool installation, and search engine optimization. He is also charged with supervising specialized content projects and hacking in-house tools for campaign management through the Google API.
Cory’s B.A. is in English and Journalism, from the University of Missouri. Since then he has amassed a variety of web development certifications. He is married with three children, and lives in St. Louis.