SearchBliss Webmaster News

Google Caffiene is going live

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:27:00 +0000

The long awaited Google Caffiene update is finally going live.

Here's the official word from Google:

We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox. Based on the success we've seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

Results can be seen live on this Google Data Center:
http://www4.google.com

Links for 2009-11-09 [Digg]

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 PST

New AdSense Interface Being Tested
Google announced the beta testing of a new AdSense interface today. It is being tested with a small group of publishers. Google says the new interface was designed based on the top three requests from users.

New AdSense Interface Being Tested

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:08:00 +0000

I had recently taken the new AdSense Survey I noticed when I logged in (upper right corner in red). What I wasn't expecting was the following to start so soon since the survey had only been up for a few days.

Source: WebProNews

Google announced the beta testing of a new AdSense interface today. It is being tested with a small group of publishers. Google says the new interface was designed based on the top three requests from users:

1. Provide insights to help you make more informed decisions about you sites.

2. Offer you more control over the ads that appear on your sites.

3. Help you manage you account more efficiently
With the new interface, AdSense publishers can get more detailed performance reports that let them view daily stats in graphical formats. In addition, it provides metrics like amount you've earned from various ad, targeting, and bid types.

What I stressed the most was #2. I stated "I'd like to have more control over ad appearance as premium publishers do."

I'm looking forward to the possibilities and hope it's out of beta soon.

AdWords Conversion Tracking made easier

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:48:00 +0000

If you use AdWords Conversion Tracking, you may have noticed that the interface for this tool has been redesigned so that it's easier to implement, monitor, and troubleshoot.

There are now 3 easy-to-use tabs - Conversions, Webpages, and Code -that help you manage your conversion data.

Conversions: This is where you see information about the conversion actions you're tracking.

Webpages: Here, you'll see which pages on your site are getting conversions. You can also see a breakdown of the number of conversions per page on your site. This is useful for troubleshooting, as you can make sure conversions are coming from the pages you expect and identify pages that are not reporting conversion activity.

Code: This is where you get the tracking code for each conversion action. You can also change the value of an action, which helps you calculate ROI.

Source: Google AdWords Blog

MSN Gets a Face Lift

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:18:00 +0000

Spurred by the ever-changing ways in which people use the Internet, Microsoft has unveiled a completely redesigned MSN home page.

The popular Web portal is moving away from its more traditional format of a "link mall," as MSN senior director Lisa Gurry said, and going with a more simplistic design. Available for preview at 9 p.m. Tuesday and rolling out Wednesday to 10 percent of MSN's audience, the new site has half as many blue links, features tabbed browsing and integrates with Facebook and Twitter.

"Our goal really was focused on making it a simple, clear and fast home page," Gurry said. "The simplicity of the design is really based on feedback from our customers and looking at traffic on our sites."

Here's a preview

The design is a lot clearer and easy to navigate. Now I believe that Microsoft needs to clarify their branding. MSN, Live, Hotmail, Bing,...it's a bit confusing.

Google Introduces Comparison Ads

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Introducing AdWords Comparison Ads
From Google:

Today we're excited to begin testing a new feature of AdWords called AdWords Comparison Ads, which lets users compare multiple, relevant offers more easily. Comparison Ads is part of our continuing effort to make ads more relevant and useful to our users and to help you, our advertisers, reach the people who are most interested in your products and services.

AdWords uses a host of targeting and relevancy signals to determine the best ads for each query. However, sometimes a user's query doesn't provide enough information for us to confidently predict what they want. Take, for example, users who search for "mortgage." Do they want a new home loan or a refinance? Do they want a fixed rate or an adjustable rate loan? Comparison Ads improves the ad experience on Google.com by letting users specify exactly what they are looking for and helping them quickly compare relevant offers side by side.

With Comparison Ads, you can also target your offers at a more granular level, leading to more valuable, qualified leads. To see how it works, let's use our mortgage example. Users searching for "mortgage" on Google.com may see a promotion from Comparison Ads prompting them to select the type of loan they are looking for and to compare various rates.

If they click the promotion, users are taken to a page with more detailed sponsored results. They can choose directly from the offers listed on that page, or they can further refine their search by providing additional information like income and home value. By giving users the ability to refine their search on a number of relevant attributes, we are able to show more targeted ads and provide you with more valuable leads.

Once users find an offer that matches their specific needs, they can either call you directly or request a quote. If a user requests a quote, Google automatically anonymizes the user's phone number and sends you a unique code that you can use to contact the user. You only pay if a user calls the phone number on your offer or fills out a form to request a quote.

At this time, Comparison Ads will only show to a small number of users in select U.S. states and is only available to a limited number of advertisers in the mortgage/refinance space. Over time, we'll increase the number of users who see Comparison Ads offers as well as the number of advertisers able to participate.

Source: Google AdWords Blog

Verizon to Unveil Droid Phones for $199

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Verizon is unveiling its first Google Droid phone at the W Hotel this morning in New York City. Currently, Verizon's CMO John Stratton is speaking.

He said, "This is a pretty exciting day for us,” Stratton says. Motorola has been "a critical part of this story," calling Motorola, Google and Verizon Wireless three great brands that have come together on Droid.

The Verizon Droid phone can run multiple applications at the same time, it has broadband capability, ability to view web pages as you would on a desktop. The Verizon Droid phone also includes messaging: Exchange email, Gmail, other POP and IMAP interfaces.

The phone will be priced at $199 and Verizon plans to introduce a series of Droid phones.

Source: BenZingA

PayPal Announces Open API To Developers

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:21:00 +0000

PayPal announced at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco that they will soon be opening Pay Pal API for developers.

PayPal's president, Scott Thompson said: "I am proud to say in just two weeks, PayPal will be the first global online payment service to open its platform to everyone.

"We hope and expect to unleash the power of digital money regardless of the currency and regardless of the platform in any country in the world."

Mr Thompson added: "PayPal will be the first truly global online payment service to open its platform to everyone. We'll be releasing APIs [application programming interface] that will allow anyone in the industry to create new ways to reinvent the $30 trillion payments industry."

This, among other things, will give developers the ability to process funds without having to go through PayPal.com

Is Google slowly eliminating PageRank?

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:04:00 +0000

For too many years, many webmasters have been "obsessed" with Google's PR (PageRank) feature in the Google toolbar. Webmasters have manipulated backlinks doing everything they could to increase "the little green bar". One of these tactics that Google "frowns on" is buying links for PR. This feature that ranks the "importance" of websites from 0-10 according to Google, seems to be getting down played by Google. Maybe they realized that PR cannot play a big part in the positions of websites in the SERPs (search engine result pages) when it is so easily manipulated.

I first noticed the down-play of PR when Google did not include PR in the latest version of the Google Chrome browser. More recently, Google has removed the PR feature from Google Webmaster Tools, stating they removed the tools after repeatedly telling webmasters "they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much.".

As a webmaster myself, I knew that PR would only create problems for Google in the long run. Now, maybe they have realized this and are looking for ways to reduce the presence of PR without eliminating it all in one shot to avoid a bombardment of panicked emails from obsessed webmasters.

If Googles intention is to eventually eliminate toolbar PR, I say it's about time! I very tired of reading webmaster forum threads that evolve around PR as if it's all that matters. I have just one peice of advice for webmasters. Focus on your website visitors by creating quality and useful content.

Microsoft to deliver largest-ever number of security updates

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:01:00 +0000

Microsoft today said it will deliver its largest-ever number of security updates on Tuesday to fix flaws in every version of Windows, as well as Internet Explorer (IE), Office, SQL Server, important developer tools and the enterprise-grade Forefront Security client software.

Among the updates will be the first for the final, or release to manufacturing, code of Windows 7, Microsoft's newest operating system.

The company will ship a total of 13 updates next week, eight of them pegged "critical," the highest threat ranking in its four-step scoring system, beating the previous record of 12 updates shipped in February 2007 and again in October 2008.

Most people can access the updates automatically, but there are also links that can be downloaded on Microsoft's security site.

Microsoft generally releases its security updates on the second Tuesday of every month.

Google Making AJAX Page States Crawlable

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:02:00 +0000

From Google:
Today we're excited to propose a new standard for making AJAX-based websites crawlable. This will benefit webmasters and users by making content from rich and interactive AJAX-based websites universally accessible through search results on any search engine that chooses to take part. We believe that making this content available for crawling and indexing could significantly improve the web.

While AJAX-based websites are popular with users, search engines traditionally are not able to access any of the content on them. The last time we checked, almost 70% of the websites we know about use JavaScript in some form or another. Of course, most of that JavaScript is not AJAX, but the better that search engines could crawl and index AJAX, the more that developers could add richer features to their websites and still show up in search engines.

Some of the goals that we wanted to achieve with this proposal were:

- Minimal changes are required as the website grows

- Users and search engines see the same content (no cloaking)

- Search engines can send users directly to the AJAX URL (not to a static copy)

- Site owners have a way of verifying that their AJAX website is rendered correctly and thus that the crawler has access to all the content

Source: Google Webmaster Central

No "behavior" based advertising, please.

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:06:00 +0000

Research conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and the Berkeley Centre for Law and Technology has found that 66% of adult US citizens do not want advertising to be tailored to what advertisers think are their interests.

Privacy advocates said the research would give authorities a political green light to enact reasonable rules and policies.
The US Congress is considering such legislation, it was revealed after a coalition of 10 privacy campaigners published a 13-page report about behavioural tracking.

The Report Summery:
Title: Contrary to what marketers say, Americans Reject Tailored Advertising and three activities that enable it.
Authors: Joseph Turow, Jennifer King, Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Amy Bleakley, and Michael Hennessy
Contrary to what many marketers claim, most adult Americans (66%) do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests. Moreover, when Americans are informed of three common ways that marketers gather data about people in order to tailor ads, even higher percentages— between 73% and 86%--say they would not want such advertising.
Full Report...

Please leave your comments and thoughts on "behavior based advertising".

New Google feature, "features" forum posts

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:47:00 +0000

New Google feature, "features" forum posts in search results.

From Google:Today, we introduced a new search feature that makes it easier for you to find forum posts or discussions related to what you're searching for. This new addition to Google search results applies to sites that tend to have a large number of posts on a specific topic. When several different discussions on a site are relevant to your query, we indent them under the primary result and include the date of each post.

So for instance, if you search for [getting from rome to florence] you will see, below the third result, a list of relevant discussions on various ways to get between these cities.

It's always nice to know what others are saying about the best ways to get around (by boat or train) and how recent those comments are — especially if it's your first time traveling to Italy.

We hope this feature gives you a deeper view into the relevant content available on sites throughout the web — even when that content spans multiple pages or discussions.
At the same time, the main search results are diverse as always — so if you can't pinpoint a useful comment there's a list of relevant sites there to help.

Source: GoogleBlog

Blogging: Its Relevance in Social Media Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:49:00 +0000

Blogging is a powerful tool in social networking. Since long time, it is being used strategically as a medium for social networking. Blogs were a medium of expressing your vision and thoughts about anything. Bloggers were free to express their views without any censorship. It became the most important reason behind popularity of blogs. Later people started interacting with fellow bloggers and sharing ideas with each others.

These days, blogs are not only used as a medium of expression. It has become more evident in self promotion, and is acting as the powerful source of attracting people towards some pre-defined goals. Nowadays, it’s a platform to meet and communicate with potential customers. Webmasters are using different blog websites like "Word press" and "Blogger" as their main tool for targeting their customers globally.

Some people engaged in internet marketing or advertising of products and services use blogs as a tool to promotion. They also interact with existing and potential customers with help of blogs. Updating blogs regularly with latest information about their products and services keeps them ahead from competitors. It is very important for customers to know about the latest information about new product launches and company’s latest achievements. It helps in creating a positive impact over them.

Blogs are also helpful in driving organic traffic towards its parent website that always results in conversion of potential business into sales. Therefore its importance cannot be overlooked. Nowadays, blogs are more relevant in social media marketing.

A new concept which has taken everything into its roll is micro-blogging. Immense popularity of Micro blogging website Twitter is the best example. Now, you can easily find a link on every ecommerce website to their latest tweets. It is the least time consuming and maximum productive way of making formal announcements. You can inform everyone in your network with a simple and short tweet.

Apart from tweeting, My Space and Facebook are other two most important tools used in social media networking. Facebook and MySpace both combine the features of a blog as well as social networking website, making it perfect for webmasters. It’s really interesting to see this useful association. If you really want to get success in e-Commerce and want to be a perfect and popular social networker, you cannot ignore the importance of blogs and blogging.

So, keep blogging and earn respect in online community of fellow bloggers and social networkers.

No, "Googlle" is NOT a typo.

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:53:00 +0000

On Google, the Google logo appears to have a typo. Tt reads "Googlle" instead of "Google". Why is the Google logo spelled wrong? Google is celebrating its 11th anniversary today and decided to commemorate the event with a doodle that references the number 11 by adding another "l", to create "Googlle."

According to Google Trends, the search engine's new logo seems to have created a lot of confusion. Two of the top ten queries on Google trends were "why does Google have two 'l's" and "why is Google spelled wrong?". Maybe "Goog11e" would have created less of a stir.

On Google's 10th birthday, they simply replaced the forst "o" with a cup cake, and the "e" with a "0" spelling "Googl0". This was a lot more obvious without creating a stir.

Happy 11th birthday Google!

Links for 2009-09-26 [Digg]

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Web securities and internet crime
Everyone has a website, wants a website or is keen to know more about someone else’s website. Imagine each website as a house, each search engine as a city and all of the web visitors as people walking around. Some of these people want to do you harm, they want to break into your house, or in this case, your website. It is no different to life...

Web securities and internet crime

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:15:00 +0000

Imagine walking out of your front door and leaving it open, whilst you jet off on holiday for a week. Or parking your car in central London and leaving all of the windows open and your laptop on the front seat. Or even walking around town with your wallet hanging out of your pocket and your iPod on so loud that you couldn’t hear an airplane, let alone a pick pocket walking behind you.

You are probably thinking, "Why would I do that, I am not stupid!".

It is true to say, the majority of us would never do any of the things mentioned in my opening paragraph, because they are the basic security measures of life. Lock your front door, keep your windows closed when away and don’t leave anything worth pinching in your car.

As you begin to wonder where this article is going, lets take the same situation, but for our websites.

Everyone has a website, wants a website or is keen to know more about someone else’s website. Imagine each website as a house, each search engine as a city and all of the web visitors as people walking around. Some of these people want to do you harm, they want to break into your house, or in this case, your website. It is no different to life in the “real” world. The majority of the people are good, but there are some that do mean you harm and will try every method, tip and tick going to bring you down.

Internet crime is one of the fast growing crimes in the global world as we know it. Everyday we see websites get hacked, passwords stolen and viruses hidden via iframe injections that will come along and do you, your visitors and probably your reputation great damage.

In my opinion, you can never be 100% secure, and anyone that claims to be is either lying or has spent thousands of pounds on security measures that the majority of us can not afford. But you can make sure you are as secure as you can possibly be by implementing a few security measures, and these are described below.

Virus Protection – Security starts at home, and by this I mean make sure you are running a first class security suite on your home pc’s and laptops. I use Mcafee, but there are others including AVG and Norton, but just make sure you use a well recommended internet security suite which if you do get infected, will help protect and fix any problems. Also download Malwarebytes and run this on a periodic basis. The latest Virus programs can now also fix infected webpages, meaning you can save hours by letting them fix the issues should your site get infected.

FTP Passwords – Every week, change your FTP password. Yes, this is a pain and you probably won’t do it, but it can be the one thing that stops your site from being hacked. Some of the latest viruses steal FTP passwords from your pc and then send them to the bad world, so by changing the password periodically, even if they do steal your data, it will be another layer in protection for you.

Security Patches – Make sure your computer is patched. Many of the Trojans and exploits are coming through on un-patched or older systems. Make sure you allow Windows to update when it needs to and just to be on the safe side, check for updates once a week, even if you have it on automatic.

Keyword Research: Points to consider

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:39:00 +0000

Keyword research in undoubtedly one of the most important aspects to consider when setting up your own online home business.

If you don't target your keyword phrases effectively then you will be wasting both time and effort, performing tasks that will never pay off no matter how hard you try.

Here are some points to consider when conducting your keyword research:

1. Consider which tools you are going to use and save them to a one of your favourites folders for easy and frequent access. There are even some tools out there that allow you to download a tool bar with all the tools readily available. There are numerous free tools, many of which are very useful. I personally, use a tool called Keyword Elite to conduct my online keyword research.

2. What keyphrases are you going to target? - If you have very few resources available and are new to online marketing then it is advisable that you target 'long tail' keyword phrases. These are keyword phrases with 3-5 words, which make them a lot less competitive and easier to attain top rankings in the search engines.

3. Use a variety of keyword phrases for each campaign - Are you using the keywords in your website content or are they primarily for backlinking text? I would find two or three less competitive keyword phrases for each target market and use these to create backlinks through article submissions. Then, take ten different variations of these keyword phrases and use them in your website content.

4. Target profitable keyword phrases - Obviously the main aim of keyword research is to find profitable keywords. How can we do that? One effective way to target buyers and also find less competitive search terms is to find keyword phrases that contain certain words like, 'buy' as in 'buy keyword research tool'.

5. Find untapped markets - Many of your competitors will be targeting all the same keyword phrases. This is where they fall down. Find obscure phrases that your target are already searching for and go after these by specifically writing articles based on these to achieve better or top search engine rankings. One good way to do this is by scanning your current website visitors and finding the keyword terms that sent them to your site.

Keyword research is only a beginning in building a profitable online business but it is an aspect of your marketing that cannot be overlooked. Effective keyword research is essential to ensure your business becomes a huge success and not a dismal failure.

PPC Advertising: Make Your Business "Click"

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:28:00 +0000

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services - the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it "keyword auctioning"). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

Pay per placement
Pay per performance
Pay per ranking
Pay per position
Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the 'landing pages' for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business 'online'. Some of them are listed below:

Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly - they can go 'online' within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into 'qualified' people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer - those who are more likely to become a 'lead' (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or "organic" search engines.

Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive - the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right - a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program - if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

Discount offers
Testimonials
Celebrity/famous endorsers
Money-back guarantees
Free trials or sample offers
Freebies
Reverse psychology
Major benefits ("Lose weight")
Direct instructions ("Click here")

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple - designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.

Prevent Phishing Scams

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:08:00 +0000

Have you ever received e-mail messages that threaten to close your PayPal or Ebay account unless you send them information? It's a scam called "phishing." It is pronounced "fishing." It means what it says. Internet scam artists are fishing for information. It comes from Internet fraudsters who send spam or pop-up messages to lure personal information from you. Their objective is to extract sensitive information from unsuspecting victims.

The Federal Trade Commission(FTC) warns you that when phishers send you a fraudulent e-email, they want you to update, validate,or confirm your bank, credit card, or PayPal account, including passwords. Some phishing e-mails threaten to terminate your account if you don't respond. The messages direct you to a website that looks just like a legitimate organization's site. However, it isn't. It's a bogus site whose sole purpose is to trick you into divulging your personal information so the operators can steal your identity and run up bills or commit crimes in your name.

The FTC suggests these tips to help you avoid getting hooked by a phishing scam:

If you get an e-mail message that asks for your personal or financial information, DO NOT REPLY. Do not click on the link in the message. Legitimate companies don't ask for this information via e-mail. If you are concerned about your account, contact your bank or credit card company using a telephone number you know that is genuine.

All the scam merchant needs is for you to access his/her website. Then, you are hooked. To avoid an inadvertent mistake, stay off the internet until you have established contact with your financial institution.

Use anti-virus software and a firewall. Keep them up to date. Some phishing e-mails contain software that can harm your computer or track your activities on the Internet without your knowledge.

Anti-virus software and a firewall can protect you from inadvertently accepting such unwanted files. Anti-virus software scans incoming communications for troublesome files. Look for anti-virus software that recognizes current viruses as well as older ones that can effectively reverse the damage and that updates your files automatically.

A firewall helps make you invisible on the Internet. It blocks all communications from unauthorized sources. It is especially important to use a firewall if you have a broadband connection. Operating systems like Windows also may offer free software updates to close holes in the system that hackers or phishers could exploit.

Don't e-mail personal or financial information. E-mail is not a secure method of transmitting personal information. If you initiate a transaction and need to provide such information, look for indicators that the destination site is secure. Unfortunately, no indicator is foolproof. Some phishers have forged security icons.

Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them. Check for unauthorized charges,address changes,and unexplained account balances.

Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails you receive, regardless of who sent them. These files can contain viruses or other software that can weaken your computer's security.

After you are back on the internet, forward spam e-mail that is phishing for information to spam@uce.gov. Also, forward the suspicious e-mail to the company, bank, or organization impersonated in the phishing e-mail. Most organizations have information on their websites about where to report problems.

If you believe you've been scammed, file your complaint to ftc.gov, and then visit the FTC's Identity Theft website at www.consumer.gov/idtheft. Victims of phishing can become victims of identity theft. While you can't entirely control whether you will become a victim of identity theft, you can take some steps to minimize your risk. If an identity thief is opening credit accounts in your name, these new accounts are likely to show up on your credit report. You may catch an incident early if you order a free copy of your credit report periodically from any of the three major credit bureaus.

You can learn other ways to avoid email scams and deal with deceptive spam at ftc.gov/spam

How to Get Domains Cheap with GoDaddy

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Your website is a branding tool. You use it to attract eyeballs, customers, clients and other consumers of your products and services. Successful branding is all about repetition. Successful repetition is all about the quality of your message--having something that is both easy to remember and just clever enough to stimulate the brain to the point where your message sticks without becoming annoying.

In this day and age you can create a functioning website with a few simple mouse clicks or many hours of heavy coding but no matter how much effort you put into its design the worst thing that can happen is having someone who is interested in finding you not be able to do so because you've made it much more difficult than necessary. The truth of the matter is that without what’s known as a “Top Level Domain” name (TLD), most people won't think you are serious about your branding. Yes, it’s called bias and yes, you may have the coolest, most tricked-out yoursite.blogger.com webpage on the net but trust me when I say that without a TLD your affiliate marketing efforts will be D.O.A.

Luckily, getting a domain name is easier than you think. The first thing you need to do is think up a great domain name that applies to your niche. If your site is about digital cameras then make sure that’s factored into your domain name in a clever way. Think of all the various words that are associated with your niche and combine them if you have to. But whatever you do, make sure you pick your niche first THEN pick your domain name. Don’t try to find the coolest domain name in the world and then force your niche, brand or product into it. Now once you’ve picked a domain name, you have to search to make sure it’s available. This is actually something you can do for free at GoDaddy.com. There’s a window right there on their homepage that you can use to search if your domain name choices are available. Remember there are a LOT of websites out there in the world and more created every day so be patient if the domain name you thought up is already being used by someone else. The GoDaddy domain name search will also give you available alternative choices that are as close as possible to the name you just put in. This of course will save you time in trying to figure an alternative domain if your favorite is taken.

The best part is that domain names are CHEAP! A few years ago a domain could cost up to $100 per year but now, because of changing regulations allowing for competition you can get a .com domain name for just $7.45 a year by using a money saving GoDaddy coupon. And with any domain name purchase at GoDaddy you get free (limited) hosting, free quick blog, free e-mail, all for about the cost of one fast food lunch. The best GoDaddy coupon codes don't expire and can be used over and over. Try PCH1 to save 10% off any size order or PCH2 to save $5 off an order of $30 or more. If you're buying a new .com domain or transferring an old one, then using GoDaddy coupon code PCH3 at checkout will get you that magic discount price of $7.45.

Use these money saving GoDaddy discount codes and you'll keep your money where it belongs, in your pocket. And for those of you who plan on buying more than one domain you'll see quite a bit of savings by using these Go Daddy discount codes time and time again. Most importantly, however, once you find the right TLD, you'll increase the value of your branding many times over.

Click Fraud Detection and Protection

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:06:00 +0000

If you have the ability to detect click fraud, you are still left with nothing. Detecting is only the first step towards receiving compensation for fraudulent clicks. Even if you are able to detect click fraud, you still need to present your case to the search engine, wait for them to do an investigation and then make their decision. In most cases, the search engine will rule that you were not a victim of click fraud. Your only other recourse is to join the latest class action suit where you might get a couple dollars in a couple years. Is that worth the time and concern?

When we speak with most people about click fraud, what they are really concerned about is if click fraud is making their online advertising investment unprofitable. Most can live with this unavoidable nuisance if they are still making a profit, as they realize this is just the cost of doing business online.

The best way to address click fraud is to protect yourself against it before or as it is happening, which means protecting your downside (i.e. how much money you can lose as measured in lost profits in the event of a click fraud attack.

One way is to monitor your clicks all day long looking at ROI or cost per conversion. And if you determine that all of a sudden one of those numbers is out of whack, which is an indicator, you can then turn off that given ad, protecting the downside from it. But who has time to stare at their clicks all day long at every keyword just to make sure they are not a victim of fraudulent clicks?

A better option is to be able to use a technology that will auto spot anomalies in keyword performance and turn off keywords that appear to be victims of fraud in near real time. A system such as this gives you the confidence to know that your downside is protected, that click fraud can only harm you to a certain extent and help you achieve your ultimate fear of click fraud that you will not be profitable.

Advertisers need to realize that click fraud is not new to the world of advertising; it is just associated with online advertising. Think about it, if you have a TV commercial and a percentage of viewers change the channel as soon as your commercial airs, aren't you receiving the same value as a fraudulent click? Or, let's say you place an ad in the business section of a major newspaper, knowing their incredibly large circulation will allow your ad to been seen by the masses. As readers pick up their paper, a percentage of them will focus their eyes solely on articles and avoid any of the advertisements or won't even open the business section at all, thus rendering your ad useless.

Click fraud does hamper a percentage of online advertising, but any form of media utilized for advertising has its drawbacks. To be successful advertising online, as with any form of advertising, you have to be willing to accept some of the negatives in order to reap the benefits in the end.

Detect and Kill Spyware

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:52:00 +0000

Spyware is a small program that is installed in your computer forcibly in an unauthorized way. As the name suggests, these are like spies who try to gather your personal and financial information that are stored on your computer with an objective to do fraud. Make sure that your computer is loaded with the program that can block spyware. However, not every spyware program is associated with fraudulent activities.

In most cases, they are installed in your computer in order to understand your Internet surfing behavior so that the data is transferred to various business bodies to help them with their massive targeted advertising campaigns. Nevertheless, it is still an infringement of your privacy!

What Do Spyware Programs Do?

Spyware programs infect your computer in several ways. The most common thing that they do is to set your homepage to a URL that shows some specific advertisement. What is more, these pages keep opening on your system repeatedly in every few minutes.

Most of the times Internet users use search engines to reach a specific website. These spyware programs can even redirect you to an advert-filled search engine. Pop ups are also a major source of spyware programs. One of the best ways to get rid of spyware is to avoid downloading unauthenticated products. Most spyware programs come with the freebies. For example, you may be downloading a song, but you never know that along with the song file, you are also inviting an irritating and frustrating spyware. Thus, prevention is the key when it comes to protecting your computer from such threats.

How To Kill Spyware Programs

Invention is the baby of necessity. If there is a problem, there must be a solution. And, spyware programs are not an exception. Google, Microsoft, McAfee and various other established and reputed companies offer spyware protection software that have the capability to erase spyware programs permanently from your computer.

However, spyware killer programs come into action after a spyware has already infected your computer. If you want to keep your computer always protected so that it could not get spyware programs in the first place, the best way is to keep your firewall setting activated. What is more, you must also make sure that the Windows you are using is updated with all the latest features. Keep the option for automatic updates on. Microsoft keeps on updating the features for windows in order to enable them to fight with all kinds of spyware programs efficiently.

Fight Spam! Strategies and Software to Take Back your Inbox

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:10:00 +0000

Efficiency and accuracy in communication may be more important today than at any time in human history. The number of spam messages passed between individuals and businesses continues to increase significantly each day, to the point that some are literally overwhelmed by their sheer volume. Now, more than ever, it is vital that true non-spam email messages be absolutely accurate and arrive at the correct location, on time.

According to most studies, Americans are doing their part in adding to the vast number of electronic messages, but they are also creating a huge number of unwanted, unnecessary messages. One set of statistics shows that as many as 4 of every 10 spam items come from U.S. addresses. Europeans are far worse, however. Half of all emails originating there are spam, according to some statistics.

But what is spam, really? Of course, most people know about the canned food made from pork products (a Hawaiian delicacy). The definition widely used in electronic messaging and email defines spam as a "disruptive, commercial message that is unsolicited and usually sent indiscriminately." The sheer number of unsolicited messages is enough of a problem in that the sheer handling of this additional traffic slows the entire process of communication. In addition, those messages contain symbols, code etc. that actually cause system disruption or total failure. The resulting damage can be costly.

Some of the top stories in the world of email and electronic messaging recently have focused on the motivation behind spamming. In the end, it is mostly greed/money that motivates these "spammers" who spend their time distributing spam full-time through automated bots and zombie computer networks. Many of those who watch this industry carefully acknowledge that current Federal laws in the United States and at the individual State level fall short of controlling this type of "white collar" crime.

So, what can be done to remedy this situation? Actually, a number of steps can be taken to ensure that individual and business email is safe and efficient. Just making sure the inbox is free of unwanted messages is an obvious place to start. But how is that done?

Much of the spam sent to worldwide email addresses is meant to introduce products, in the hopes that the receiver will be enticed to buy. Financial schemes (the dreaded Nigerian Email scam) and illicit pharmaceutical adverts make up a significant portion of spam; as does pornography and offers for adult material.

Basic e-mail filtering (determined by the content of the e-mail) is a simple step each and every user should be taking at the start of each day and at the start of each email session. In essence, this filtering can be initiated by certain words or phrases that automatically send messages to the trash. Beyond this initial effective step, there are black hole lists (DNS-based) of known spammers, as well as email addresses that are not intended to be used except to capture spam (spamtraps) which offer more intermediate ways to combat the problem at the computer user level.

Some of the best methods employed by individuals and businesses have not been enough to stop the most determined of spammers, however. The most aggressive will use false names and addresses to establish multiple accounts across multiple ISP's. The use of "buffers" or third-party senders, helps to isolate the actual spammer from recrimination. Spammers have found and will continue to find open paths to unsuspecting inboxes, with the added risk of virus-infected messages a growing concern.

Spam and viruses are a particular risk to companies with extensive communications networks. While many of the simple steps noted above will help keep a system clean (with constant attention by administrators), more aggressive tactics are needed to ensure the continued success of larger, commercial internal communications networks.

New technology, such as highly intuitive anti-spam filtering software, may be the answer to many of the problems caused by a worldwide increase in spam. Current email users can download these anti-spam software updates in real-time and in doing so will help keep their network current. This type of technology is at the top of the list for users looking for email maintenance and for help in maintaining the efficiency and integrity of an entire communications system. Among the key focus areas for general email users are virus-free stability, lower maintenance and upgrade costs, email search capabilities for customized spam surveillance, archive services and anti-spam tools that put the daily maintenance in the hands of the local administrator.

Spam continues to grow, as senders find motivation to increase their efforts. At one time only a few hundred people received these unwanted messages. But over the years, the problem has exploded and now affects billions of email users and businesses each day. By one estimate, only about 15% of email is truly wanted and needed by the end receiver. Companies have come to realize this inefficiency cannot be supported over the long-term and are turning more and more to professional software protection options for help.

Don't let spam win, make sure your email messaging system is protected by a robust anti-spam software solution and take back your inbox today!

When Creating a Website

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:58:00 +0000

If you have decided to develop a website of your own, web building software will help you make your dream come true. Those who are planning to set up a business creating websites for others should learn HTML & other skills necessary for site building. But ordinary Internet users who would like to have websites of their own just need suitable site development tools & a few hours to complete the procedure.

There is no need to be qualified in website building to choose ideally suited development programs. The most used ones are the so-called WYSIWYG builders (What You See IS What You Get builders). They can be easily operated by anyone who knows the word processor basic ideas. All you need to do is to pick templates, type them in your text & by means of editing tools to make changes, pick out colours and add photos & - that is it. No need to worry about links. They are added automatically. Thus, as soon as you are through, merely click the submit button to have the procedure completed & get you website published. In fact it is believed to be the easiest way to develop a site.

Website hosting packages commonly contain WYSIWYG builders that come in 2 types: on-line versions to be used everywhere and versions to be downloaded. You use them off-line & can upload your webpage upon termination. Normally there are tutorials and demonstration programs to help you figure out what a program is capable of. Now and then there are also trial versions available. As far as payment goes, a web server company whose web development programs you make use of generally charges you for a website page.

So, before you have purchased web building tools, try free demonstration programs. It will help you decide if the chosen software completely meets your demands such as the graphics & interactivity including opinion polls, membership sigh-ups, message boards that you want to see on your site. Ask yourself whether you would like to be independent of a web server company or not & if the software is user-friendly enough.

Collect information about various website builders before reaching your final decision. Make a draft of each web page you are planning to have in order to facilitate the hunt for proper web development tools.
For sure you will get a website of your dream then!

Links for 2009-09-17 [Digg]

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Explanation of Affiliate Marketing Basics
Several people have resorted to world wide web for making money online. If you attained information about becoming online business person than you must have come across the term 'affiliate marketing'. This concept is very popular among online entrepreneurs who have already started making money through it and is used more than online auctions.
Mobile Phone Arms Race
Mobile phones are racing with each other in the speed of their processors and software. Those who can, write software which runs twice as fast and use cheaper processors to make more money and be able to lower the price after others catch up, like Apple. Those who can't, sell overpriced hardware which uses too much power to try to deliver...

Mobile Phone Arms Race

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:21:00 +0000

Mobile phones are racing with each other in the speed of their processors and software. Those who can, write software which runs twice as fast and use cheaper processors to make more money and be able to lower the price after others catch up, like Apple. Those who can't, sell overpriced hardware which uses too much power to try to deliver enough power to the software which is four times as slow, and people wonder why their expensive device runs out of battery power before they can view a movie on it, like the Windows Mobile devices, but people still pay for what they heard is good on a commercial somewhere. Those who don't make compromises are called Nokia.

The new N97 also has an ARM processor, like the others, only twice as fast as the one in iPhone, and it also has software as fast as iPhone's, and faster. It also has mobile phone functions and a camera so good, Apple and Windows Mobile and Android devices will not catch up because Nokia is doing it for far, far longer then them. For photography lovers who want to have applications run on their mobile phones, the choice for a smartphone is very clear. They only have Nokia to choose from, and the N97 is the best Nokia there is, and the only one that has a keyboard, touchscreen and a 5 megapixel camera.

If you need a Symbian phone to use Symbian S60 applications, there isn't a better one than N97, it is faster than all previous S60 phones and has a touchscreen and keyboard, which others don't have. For every business application which uses Symbian S60 application, the N97 gives you more speed and control than any other Nokia. Only the time saved by using the touchscreen and keyboard will pay it off, and it may give you the edge you need to stay ahead in the world of economic crisis.

Explanation of Affiliate Marketing Basics

noreply@blogger.com (SearchBliss) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:07:00 +0000

Several people have resorted to world wide web for making money online. If you attained information about becoming online business person than you must have come across the term 'affiliate marketing'. This concept is very popular among online entrepreneurs who have already started making money through it and is used more than online auctions. The reason for its success are many, but before that one needs to understand this concept well.

Sometime at every stage people have practiced as affiliate marketer, it is all about referring about any business or company that offers items/services. We all have done the work of recommending any business or company to our friends and relatives at some stage or the other in life. In online affiliate marketing, marketers get commission when they refer an online business to any client successfully.

There are many advantages attached to affiliate marketing that have made it a popular form of marketing. It bears no overhead costs for getting started. Thus you don't need to invest in any expensive store for it. Here inventories are not required to be stocked as the merchants who get referred to themselves maintain the inventory.

Here there are no fixed working hours or place of work. The affiliate marketers don't require to fix any certain time schedule for carrying out marketing activities. They also don't have to report their daily workings at any fixed location or office. Two most important things required for starting the work is internet connection and computer.

These are just few of the benefits of affiliate marketing that you can avail. But before getting into this field its essential to have proper knowledge and information about the workings. Thus prior research and homework is essential for better exposure and success.

Easiest way to make money through this medium is by using multiple affiliate programs collectively. This would help in using the most appropriate combination of techniques. Having detailed knowledge would help you in formulating proper marketing plan and it would also show your expertise. Those who are starting fresh in affiliate marketing should enhance their know-how about it.

You can find enough of resources and information online about affiliate marketing which are quite easy to understand and implement it. Sometimes these resources needs some basic fees, whereas doing the research by yourself would save money as well as enrich your knowledge about this field.

Links for 2009-09-16 [Digg]

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Google Tid-bits: Chrome 3 Beta & reCAPTCHA Aquisition
Google Inc has rolled out a new version of its Chrome Web browser and a version of the Mac browser for mainstream users will be available within months, as the company moves to double Chrome's market share.

Links for 2009-09-08 [Digg]

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Google, Is this REALLY the future of search?
The future of Google search according to Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, has me mystified about Google's intentions. Has Google lost it's sense of reality, or is Google just too arrogant?

Links for 2009-09-02 [Digg]

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Destiny the Musical Brings Broadway to Cyberspace - Yahoo!
Destiny, a new musical is finding a new audience on the internet. In an economy that makes backers and ticket buyers reluctant, Destiny offers a sample-before-buying approach to musical theater promotion.

Links for 2009-08-28 [Digg]

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Destiny the Musical | Official Website of the Musical Destin
Destiny is a musical in two acts by Christine Malone Kline, John C. Kline and Carolyn Curran Slota with music by Christine Malone Kline and Cecilia Beatty. Destiny is Based on an original story by Christine Malone Kline and John C. Kline.
Starlight from Destiny the musical
Starlight, an original song from the musical Destiny - Destiny and Jamie have finally been reunited after a ten-year separation. The childhood swe...
Someday from Destiny the musical
Someday, an original song from the musical Destiny - Destiny has been recaptured by an evil carnival owner who held her prisoner for ten years. Du...
Mist from Destiny the musical
Mist, an original song from the musical Destiny - Rupa is a gypsy working in a traveling carnival. The carnival owner, Pagliacci, is her lover. She tries to explain to Destiny, who was taken away from her home...
Jamie's song from Destiny the musical
Jamie's Song, an original song from the musical Destiny - Jamie has just found his long-lost-love, Destiny. She discovers that her father has died...
Enough from Destiny the musical
Enough, an original song from the musical Destiny - Pagliacci is the owner of a traveling carnival. He is obsessed with Destiny, an eighteen-year-old girl that he won in a card game ten years ago. Pagliacci has...
All Alone from Destiny the musical
All Alone an original song from the musical Destiny - Eight-year-old Destiny's father lost her in a card game to Pagliacci, and his traveling carnival. She has been thrown into a cage, and told that she will never...