Ask Doug

Is This Home Business Legit?

Question: Hi Doug,

I received a call from a gentleman by the name of ---- of ----- (A Vacation Travel Commission Site). He got my cell number because I had been online in the past trying to find out about home based businesses. He told me that for a $200.00 dollar investment, I would receive commissions of $250.00 for every person who made a sale through my website. Sounds good. Well, the only thing when I did a google search I was not able to find out any information regarding their reputation. Although, they were suppose to be in business for a number of years. I was able to get a phone number though, which is -----. In the past, I've invested a lot of money in other companies. Now that I'm on a fixed income I really don't have the extra income to give away.
I would appreciate, Doug, any information that you can find out for me about -----.

Thank you

Answer: I wouldn't get involved in that. Let me give you a couple reasons.

First, I don't know if you're familiar with Google Page Rank; it's a number from 0 to 10 which is Google's measure of your site's popularity (measured largely by the number of sites, and quality of sites that link to yours). The site you referenced has a page rank of ZERO.

To give you a sense of what that means, contrast that with a site I just built two months ago: Fifteen Minutes Of Fiction. Even though this site has only been online since the end of September, it already has a Page Rank of 4/10.

So what does that tell you about the business you're looking at? It doesn't speak very highly for them.

In addition, you should be aware, the site is not just asking you for a 200 dollar up-front investment. The fine print at the bottom of the page says that there's a monthly fee of $49.95.

This is a win-win situation for them. They really don't care if you make any sales, because they're making about $600 per year off you, regardless of whether your site is successful.

It's a lose-lose situation for you, because the only people who will buy off your site are people who know you personally. No one else will ever find your site, unless you spend some serious money promoting it.

So you need to ask yourself two questions:

1. Can I get three friends per year to buy vacation packages through my site? (that's how many you need to break even on your yearly investment)
2. Do I trust this company enough to refer my friends to them? And the obvious answer to that is: you're not even sure you trust them, so you certainly don't want to refer your friends to them.

I hope that helps!

Is PEMDAS no longer the standard Order of Operations?

Question: We have a new math 6th grade series where Order of Operations has changed and PEMDAS is no longer the standard. Have you encountered this yet?

We have Glenco, 6th grade. Multiplication and division still come before addition and substranction, however, now it works left to right whereas before it was multiplication before division.

Answer: In some areas of the world they use a different acronym (such as BODMAS or BEDMAS), but these are still the same thing as PEMDAS (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally).

Believe it or not, the PEMDAS order of operations is not only still correct, but it's always been what you just described.

The acronym PEMDAS can be deceptive, if it’s not taught correctly. How it should be taught is:

P: Parenthesis first
E: Exponents next
MD: Multiplication and Division next
AS: Addition and Subtraction last

Notice that the M and D are grouped together, as are the A and S. This is because Multiplication and Division are at the same priority level, and should be done in left to right order. Likewise, Addition and Subtraction are at the same priority level, and should be done in left to right order.

Unfortunately, many teachers don’t realize this, and teach that all multiplication is done before all division, and all addition is done before all subtraction. I was taught that way all through elementary school, and it wasn’t until I hit Jr/Sr high that I found out that Multiplication and Division are at the same priority level, as are Addition and Subtraction.

If you are looking for a game that forces students to think through Order of Operations, here's a game I created several years ago: One To Ten

Is Alexa Traffic Ranking Important?

Question: Doug,

You posted an answer to someone's question about Google Page Ranking. Maybe you can help me. My question is about the same - are the Alexa numbers important?

Answer: I say that Alexa's numbers are fairly unreliable. But I need to qualify that statement. Let me first explain what Alexa's numbers ARE, then I'll talk about how useful they are.

Unlike Google, which measures a site's value based on how many other sites link to it (and the quality of those sites), Alexa measures your site's value (read: popularity) based on two primary items:

1. Number of visitors to your site
2. How many pages they visit

Makes sense. They have an algorithm that combines those two numbers somehow, and comes up with a page rank. Thus, if your site is ranked #234, there are 233 sites in the world more popular than yours.

Here's the real issue. The only way Alexa knows how many people visit your site is by getting people to install their "toolbar". Strictly speaking, the Alexa toolbar can be considered "spyware", since it keeps track of the websites you visit.

How many people do you suppose use the Alexa toolbar? Probably thousands upon thousands. But the reality is, for every person who uses the Alexa toolbar, I would GUESS that there are at least a thousand people who DON'T use it. So how accurate are those popularity statistics?

I'll give you a for-instance. Last year I was curious to see what kind of a "bump" I could cause Quote Puzzler to take by getting a couple of its regular visitors to install the Alexa toolbar. So I asked two people to do that. And the next week, the Alexa ranking for that site jumped from about 1.5 million to 42 thousand.

Pretty sad, eh?

Okay, so now the qualification to my remarks. The MORE traffic a site has, the more accurate the figures are - that's a simple matter of statistics. Alexa will tell you that the numbers are completely meaningless if your site is listed less popular than 100,000. In other words, if your site is ranked 200,000, and mine is ranked 3,000,000, Alexa says statistically speaking, they can't tell which one is REALLY more popular.

But above 100,000, they say they are accurate.

And I say: By getting two people to install an Alexa toolbar, I got my site listed at 42,000, and they think 100,000 is statistically accurate?

I have my doubts.

So, a round about answer to your question: Alexa stats are interesting, but don't sweat them!

How Important Is PR (PageRank)

Question: My website has a PR of 2. Is that good? How important is Page Rank?

Answer: First, Google's Page Rank system goes from zero to ten, with 0 being lowest, 10 being highest. Most of my sites - even the ones I have done little to promote - have a page rank of at least 4/10, so 2 seems pretty low to me.

As for how important Page Rank is...I would say, it's only as important as Google is. Or, more specifically, it's only as important as Google is to your website!

Google ranks websites based on a scale from 0 to 10, measuring the "importance" of websites. There are people who make an entire career out of analysing Google's analysis, and explaining to people what their page rank means, and how to increase it. I'm not one of those people.

So I'll put it in really simple terms. Google measures how valuable your site is,based on (basically) two things:

1. How many other sites link to your site.
2. How "valuable" those other sites are.

Yes, it's a bit recursive, because the value of the other website is based on its page rank! A site with a Page Rank of 9 that links to your site impresses Google a lot more than a site with a Page Rank of 2 that links to you.

But how important is it? As I said, it's only as important as Google is to your website. If the bulk of your web traffic comes from Google, and your Page Rank drops, you're in trouble. On the other hand, if you have a following that doesn't require a search engine to find your site, then Google's Page Rank doesn't matter (as much).

Here's an example. One of my most popular websites: The Problem Site used to have a page rank of 5 (it still does, actually). But almost every page inside the site also had a Page Rank of 5. But now the home page is the only page with PR 5. The rest of the site is PR 4.

The odd thing is, the popularity of the site has continued to grow, even as Google's importance analysis dropped. Why?

Simply because most traffic comes to this site from school websites. And school websites are notoriously undeveloped and un-promoted. Most of them have a PR of 0 or 1 (which means Google either doesn't even know they exist, or thinks they're pretty much useless.). Thus, they have virtually no effect on my PR. But they do have an ENORMOUS effect on my site traffic.

Day after day more school districts around the world are linking to The Problem Site. Google doesn't know, and doesn't care. But I do, because as long as these "unnoticed" sites continue linking to me, they drive my target audience to my site day after day.

So to answer the question "How important is Page Rank?" you need to answer: "How important is Google to my site?"

What Is Hotlinking, and why is it bad?

Question: I got an email from a webmaster, complaining because I was "hotlinking". What does that mean? Is it a big deal? Because this guy seemed pretty upset about it.

Answer: As for what it means, hotlinking (also known as direct linking) is when you add an image file or a video file to your own website - only instead of uploading the image to your server, you just link it in from another website.

Here's an example. On my website The Problem Site there is a Hangman game. This game (obviously) has "gallows" images.

Interestingly, if you go to google image search and type "hangman", my image is currently the number three result. This means that when any webmaster or blogger out there decides he wants an image of a gallows on his blog (you'd be amazed how often that happens!), he uses my image. Except...he doesn't copy the image and upload it to his own server, he just links it in from my server. This mean that every visitor to his website is using my bandwidth.

That's just plain irritating. And potentially expensive.

So, that's what it is, and why it's considered very rude to do it.

Now, there's another reason not to hotlink images. Since the image is on MY server, I control what it looks like. So, I can always duplicate the image, change my website to point to the new image, and then modify the old one. This results in you having an image you didn't intend on your website.

In fact, this is exactly what I do. After the hangman image had been around for a couple years, and was very well linked from all over the place, I just changed it to an advertisement for my website.

The day I make that change, I always end up with a significant amount of new traffic to the site, as people see the ad for my site, and wonder what's so great about the site that their friend is advertising it!

What Do You Think Of This Gallbladder Website?

Question: Hi Doug,

I saw on your blog that you're having gallbladder surgery. Have you ever checked out this site: [link removed]

There's a proven home remedy for flushing gallstones without surgery.

What do you think?

Good luck!

Answer: Hi there,

Well, first of all, I removed the web link, which you probably won't mind, unless you're the site owner, hoping to get some link popularity from me.

I don't have any opinion on home remedies in general, so I'm going to assume that when you asked "what do you think?" you were talking about that site in particular. And I'm going to have fun answering this!

Because, you see, the site is crooked. And I wouldn't buy ANYTHING from that site!

First, when you visit the site, notice that at the top of the page it says: Last updated: August 20, 2007

Technically, it probably won't say "August 20, 2007" when you read it. It'll list the current date as the "last updated" date. How do I know that? Because I looked at the "code" running the page, and it looks like this:

<script language="javascript">

</script>

What does that mean? It means that every night at midnight that text updates to the current date. In other words, the webmaster is lying to you. The date changes whether or not the site really is updated; they simply changed the date so it would LOOK like it had been updated today.

And if they'll lie to you about that, what else do you suppose they'll lie about?

Hmmm...let's think about this...

Do you suppose they REALLY have gotten actual testimonials? If they lie about the date they modified the site, how do you know they didn't actually make up those testimonials themselves?

Do you suppose he's REALLY a doctor? I mean, he's got what looks like a doctor's lab coat on, but no where on the site did I see any listed education and/or degrees. I wonder...

And finally, here's a fun trick to try. Grab a sentence or two from his explanation of gallstones and copy it into your clipboard. Now go to Google and paste it in, putting quotes around it. When you run the search, you will discover a variety of sites containing exactly that text. Turns out the text is from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

This raises an interesting question in my mind. If the guy actually knows what he's talking about, and has written extensively on gallbladder and gallstones, why in the WORLD doesn't he tell us about it in his own words? And if he has to copy someone elses writing, why in the WORLD isn't there an NIDDK reference anywhere on his page?

So...all in all, why in the WORLD would you buy his report?

What Does This Mean?

Question: what does <3 mean?

Pat

Answer: Hi Pat,

Well, there's the obvious explanation, it's a mathematical expression, for example:

2 < 3 (two is less than three)

However, I'm fairly confident that this is not the context you're looking for.

What you're probably looking for is the internet shorthand explanation for <3.

Probably someone put it in an email. There's a good chance that you saw it towards the end of the email, or maybe as part of a larger, more obscure bit of internet shorthand, like this:

i <3 u

What does it mean? It's a heart (tip your head sideways and you'll see it!), and therefore symbolizes love. So "i <3 u" would be internet slang for "I love you", and if someone signed their email:

"<3 Doug", that would mean: "Love, Doug"

Hope that answers your question.

<3 Doug

Doug overlooked something!

Question: Editor's Note: this question/comment is in response to the Ericsson Free Computer Hoax question.

Hi ,

http://www.virtu-software.com/ask-doug/QandA.asp?q=68

"Is Ericcson really giving away free computer laptops?"

"The Ericsson Company is distributing free computer lap-tops"

"Make sure to send a copy to: anna.swelung@ericcson.com"

You didn't mention, and therefore I suspect that you didn't notice, that the domain name on the email address is not that of the well-known phone manufacturer. In fact, it leads to a cybersquatter ad page.

--
Scott.

Answer: Hi Scott,

Thanks for mentioning that. You'll get a kick out of this; somewhere in the long list of forward comments that went with this email, one of the forwarders made a comment along these lines (I can't find the original email at the moment, so this is not word for word...)

I'm pretty sure that email address is spelled wrong, so I changed the spelling

So, they actually changed it away from one spelling (which may or may not have been correct) to a certainly incorrect spelling!

And that, in itself, is a good reminder of why no one should pay any attention to these mass forwards; how many people do you suppose have modified that email since it was first sent out?

As it turns out, if you run a search for this hoax online, you'll find as many variations on the email address as there are emails. Some have Anna Swelung, some have Anna Swelund, some spell the domain erricson, ericcson, ericsson, etc.

Thanks,
Doug

ps - looking back on the previous post, I realized that I also spelled Ericsson in three different ways: Erricson, Ericcson, and Ericsson. I've gone back and fixed those!

Why can't I access these sites?

Question: Doug

You had explained the difference between web address begins with https:// ( secure) and http:// (not secure) but I want to view a website with http, which is: http://www.classmates.com

I go to my Internet security Properties and allow this website but it asked for https://www and the web site is http://www. So why is this? I have tried to get to the web site from Google, my emails that I receive from classmates and no go. Photobucket is also another website I can't get onto. I really need to know why this happens. Please help! My computer is talking to the website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on but I at least want to view the website.

Thanks Lisa

Answer: Hi Lisa,

I'm going to take a crack at this, but I'm not sure I have enough information to help you out.

My guess is that you are accessing the internet either from work, a school, or some other network which is blocking certain websites. This is a fairly common thing - in schools they don't want students visiting anything but educational/research websites, and similarly in the workplace, no one wants people playing video games and such.

The sites you mentioned, photobucket and classmates, along with other personal website/profile sites like xanga, myspace, youtube (and the list goes on and on...) are typically blocked by schools and/or businesses.

So, if you're trying to access from school/work, that maybe why. If that's not the case, keep reading, because the rest of the answer may help you understand a little better what's happening.

You spoke about "allowing" the website in your Internet Security Properties. My guess is that you were trying to add these sites to your "trusted" sites within the internet options page. If you are unable to access a website, that's the logical response.

However, by default, your browser probably won't let you add it as a trusted site unless it is secure (https). Thus, you would get a message saying "site must be https" (or something similar to that).

This simply means that your browser will not add it as a "trusted" site, because it is not a secure site.

But, if the issue is what I suggested at the beginning of the page, then adding it as a "trusted" site isn't going to help you out anyway.

If you think your computer's network may be blocking the sites, you can ask your network administrator about it, and see if they will allow the sites for you.

And if all this is way off base...well...feel free to give me more details.

Good luck!

Why Do I Get Nonsensical Emails?

Question: I went to your page to try and find out why spam email is filled with gibberish that makes no sense when you read it. And what can I do about it.

Thanks, John

Answer: Hi John,

Generally speaking, emails like this will have a website link somewhere; this is the site that's being advertised by the spammer.

As for why the spammer fills the email with nonsense like this...

fascinate sooner bear meeting quietly free inside. added mistress difficult fly thought remained.
Express Drug Mart

We are the best price on all high quality meds. Established by a reputable Canadian Doctor and Scientist, Express Drugmart's mission is to provide you with a secure online environment to purchase the safest, quality medication

Viagraa (Brand & Generic available) - as LOW as $ 2.25 a dose
Cialiss (Brand & Generic available) - as LOW as $ 2.25 a dose
Valiumm - as LOW as $ 1.50 per D0SE
Xanaxxxxx - only $ 1.50 per D0SE
Ambienn - only $ 1.65 per D0SE
Ativann - only $ 1.50 per D0SE
Somaa - only $ 1.50 per D0SE
Clenbuterol - only $ 2.50 per D0SE
Meridiaa (brand name) - only $ 3.99 per D0SE

See What Meds Has Special Discount
Click On This Link

music journey beautiful science? really fly fail truth remained.

...generally, the spammer is hoping that by putting in a variety of words that have nothing to do with drugs, he'll fool peoples' anti-spam software into thinking that his email isn't really spam. You'll also notice that he doesn't spell Viagra, Cialis, or any of the other drugs correctly. Why? Because most spam filters spot those words and immediately mark the email as spam.

Now sometimes you get an email that is nothing but nonsense - not even a web address to click. Why does that happen? My theory is: it's because spammers are stupid.

The second half of your question was, What can you do about it?

Typically, a good anti-spam or internet security software package will filter out emails which have the misspelled drug names, and other types of "tricks" that spammers play. If these aren't getting filtered out, you might want to consider updating your internet security/spam software.