Thursday, December 30, 2010

Google to Investigate Cloaking

According to sources, Google will address the issue of cloaking in the first quarter of next year.


Cloaking, which is against Google’s guidelines is defined by Google  as follows:
"Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index." (read more)

In short this is a practice that offers different search results to users and search engines.
Cloaking goes against Google’s webmaster guidelines and could even lead to the removal of a site from the search engine’s index. This is a precaution to sites that use cloaking.

This past month, Google has been investing more time on refining its algorithm against negative search engine optimization techniques. Google's Matt Cutts, in charge of much of the search giant's antispam efforts, over the past week Google plans to take a closer look at the practice of "cloaking," or presenting one look to a Googlebot crawling one's site while presenting another look to users. This can include "serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users," according to Webmaster Central help pages but Cutts implied that Google was looking beyond page content in its renewed emphasis on cloaking by suggesting that Webmasters "avoid different headers/redirects to Googlebot instead of users."


To stay abreast of trends and technology advancements, Sumner strives to stay current with the news and continues to participate regularly in developer forums and expands her knowledge through training courses sponsored by large internet marketing companies, developer forums and the internet search giant, Google, as well as industry related events in her clients' areas of practice.

No time or expertise to do it yourself? Contact Sumner.

Who owns your asset?

Asset: noun
1.
a useful and desirable thing or quality
2. a single item of ownership having exchange value.


Your domain name is an asset. Your domain name represents your business name (in many cases), links to your website, your company products and services, and/or your online store.
Who owns your asset?

You should.

So many people delegate the responsibility of designing and publishing their website to a web designer or web design company. For many reasons, some people and companies also delegate the full responsibility of their domain (asset) and their hosting account to their web designer. Some business people do this because they don't understand, don't want to be bothered with the details, or don't know what the risks are.
Your domain account shows who is listed as the owner of your domain name(s) and who are listed as administrator and technical contact. It also controls the settings for where your email and website are hosted.

When delegating the control of your domain (your asset), you may want to consider the benefits of delegating vs the benefits of your maintaining ownership control.
When you give full delegation to an outside person, web designer or company:

This person has sole access to the account where the domain name was purchased. Many web designer have a reseller account with domain registrars (ie, GoDaddy, Network Solutions etc.) and they purchase your domain for you, but keep it in their account base. They maintain full control and have the only password access to the account. Any changes are in the total control of this web designer.


This may sound good from a delegation viewpoint, however, consider this:
(1) If your web designer is a sole proprietor, and something happens to them (accident, illness, death), how will you obtain access to your asset? If they have maintained full control, you may wait months or years, or never obtain the access information. If your web designer is a member of a company, hopefully the company will have this information for you.
One company experienced this problem. They had been working with the same person for years who took care of anything internet for them. Unfortunately this person was the victim of a car accident which then left all of his clients without any access to their web accounts. We were able to work with this company and the registrar of their domain name to prove their actual ownership. Even so, it took legal assistance and months to finally gain access and ownership to the domain

account and we had to rebuild their entire website. Another customer was not as lucky and had to purchase another domain name and wait out the expiration of their company domain name.
(2) If you want for any reason, to change your services to another web designer/company, you will have to request access to your asset.
Unfortunate real life examples:

(a) One company was experiencing dissatisfaction with their web designer and wanted to make a change. When they asked for access to their domain account, they were suddenly presented with a $1000 bill for unpaid services. The invoice was no more specific that that. No amount of communication would clear up what unpaid services related to this $1000. Only after paying the $1000 did they receive a transfer of ownership of their domain name to them and received the password.


The problem, however wasn’t over when, once they accepted ownership of their domain the web designer took down their website from the internet. The web designer gave an excuse why she couldn’t transfer the hosting account to them and it was weeks before they received any web files from this web designer. Fortunately for this company, we were able to capture and download many of their web pages and files prior to the crash of their site. This way they had a representation of their website within days while their full site was being fully rebuilt. This method is not always possible. Some web designers prevent web pages from being captured, or the source file being read.

(b) Another company requested and waited months for access to their domain and hosting account. During their wait, their website remained out of date and they were unable to make any changes to it. Once they received their domain name account, they found that their domain name had expired. It was fortunate for them that they were still able to re-purchase it.

Recently I gave a presentation to a business group, and heard even more stories like these. I also heard how many of the successful business owners had no idea how little control they actually had over their asset or their web presence.

There are honest web designers who maintain control of their clients assets and they have long term mutually beneficial relationships. There are other web designers who maintain their clients by holding them hostage through the control of their assets.

And there are web designers who work with their clients and the client maintains control and grants them technical access to do all that is needed. In our experience, it is this type of designer who works on a customer satisfaction platform.

If you aren’t sure who is listed as the ownership of your domain account, you can check at www.whois.net

You will see something similar to this:
A sure fire way to know how much control you or your designer have is to ask them for your account log in and password information. Remember your domain name is YOUR asset.


GoDaddy.com $1.99 Domains



Thursday, December 16, 2010

Your behavior may be considered as SPAM on Facebook

We have all heard that Facebook hates spam, and you can lose your Facebook account if your behavior appears to resemble spamming.


Spam is defined by many as sending unwanted emails, however, did you know that Facebook spamming also includes trying to "friend" people you don't really know and includes messages you send on Facebook? Many people commit two Facebook crimes that are not are not listed specifically in the Terms section, however, you will find the results of these behaviors can cost you the loss of your account.


1. Friending everyone. Many people rush to gather thousands of friends and fans just so they appear very popular and have a larger audience to attempt to sell to.  Facebook strives to control spamming non friends. If you attempt to add someone as a friend, the popup will advise you "(this person) will have to confirm your request. Please only send this request if you know him personally."  or a newer version " If you send a request to a stranger, it will be considered spam and your friend requests will be blocked temporarily. Please only send this request if you know this person" When this person receives your request, they can accept it or alert Facebook that they do not know you.  It only takes a few of these alerts and your account can suddenly disappear with no warning. 


2. Send bulk messages through Facebook. Have you noticed that when you "like" certain pages, or new friends, you suddenly start receiving constant messages? It is a costly mistake to send all of your fans/friends regular emails soliciting your services/products without any personal interaction.  If your followers are truly people you know and have done business with, they most likely will see no problem with receiving your constant messages; however, if you are constantly sending your sales messages to  people who simply "liked" your page and you really don't know them or interact with them, you could be reported as "spamming".


The key to success with social networking, is the social part. Communicate, interact, solve problems, make referrals and ask questions - be the friend or fan someone wants to do business with.