WDS Blog

Register.com Under Malicious Attack by Hackers 11-14-2010

Libby — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 21:40:00 +0500

On Friday, November 13, 2010 Register.com was attacked by a hackers that orchestrated a (DDoS) Distributed Denial of Service Attack. A DDoS is an attempt to make computer resources unavailable to users.

If your domain is registered at Register.com you may have had some trouble with your website or email over the weekend. They are working to correct the issue but many may continue to experience internet issues due to this attack.

The motive for the attack has not been released to the public at this writing.

llucas@ccpwebdesign.com

www.ccpwebdesign.com

Google Instant Previews Launches 11-9-2010

Libby — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:55:00 +0500

Google Instant Previews is an early Christmas present!

This is a time saving new feature that allows you to take a glance at the search results by hovering over a magnifying glass icon next to the link. So instead of opening all of those website links to find out if you picked the right one for your search query, you can quickly view a small screen shot of the website page. In less than a 10^th of a second a large thumbnail appears that is readable enough to get a general idea of the content.

I applaud Google for, once again, putting the user first on their list! I have been complaining for years that the website snippets were deceiving and frustrating for users. I am estimating that this solution will dramatically cut down on keyword abuse. For example, let’s say you typed in “Buick LaCrosse, Charlotte”. You might end up 2 or 3 pages that mostly consist of directories. I hate directory pages! And I don’t think I am alone. If you are searching for an item, you don’t want to search once on Google and then again on a directory or lists page. With this new tool, you will easily be able to hover and quickly identify the Buick dealers in your area!

Want to take this one for test drive …. Sign up for the service by going to this link and click on Try It Now.

Libby Lucas
llucas@ccpwebdesign.com

www.ccpwebdesign.com

Domain Names - Dashes VS Underscores

Libby — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:39:00 +0500

Dashes VS Underscores for SEO ... Dashes WIN!!!

Prime domain names are in short supply these days so customers are resorting to dashes and underscores to get the "right" keyword phrases in their domains.

The dashes are definitely better if you are concerned about the way algorithms or Google bots see your website domain. For example, Google sees Charlotte-Web Design as three words. It sees Charlotte_Web Design as only two words.

Libby Lucas
www.CCPWebDesign.com

Canonical Issues - Do you have them? How to Fix Canonical Issues.

Libby — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 00:36:00 +0500

What is it?

Simply put a canonical issue is when your web server (usually at a host site) handles sites that begin with www (http://www.example.com) differently than sites that exclude the www (http://example.com).

How to test for a canonical issue.

Type http://yoursite.com in your browser. Remember to leave off the www
Now watch the browser. Does the URL redirect to the www. version?

If not, you may experience search engine optimization issues due to this problem.

You see we humans know that www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com are the same site but search engine bots do not. These algorithms view your site as two different sites with the same content. As you know if you been paying attention to the google rules duplicate content may be penalized.

How to fix canonical issues.

If you have control of your own web server, set up a 301 redirect in IIS.

If you do not have control of your own web server, call your host and explain that you have tested your site and need a 301 redirect placed on your URL. Occasionally there is a charge for this service but most hosts offer this service for free.

*** Warning *** If you get an inexperienced technician at your web host, they will likely offer you a web forward. Its not the same thing. Ask that your service request be escalated to a more advanced technician.

Canonical! What a word! Just makes it sound more complicated than it really is doesn't it?

Libby Lucas

www.ccpwebdesign.com

SEO Tip - See Your Site as Google Does

Libby — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:03:00 +0500

This is a great tool for seeing your website as the Google Bots do. Just go to this link http://www.seo-browser.com/ , put in the URL to your website and click "Parse URL". For more advanced information on your website stats switch to the advanced mode.

This tool is not great for link calculation but it's spot on for content. AND BEST OF ALL ITS FREE!!!!

Libby Lucas
www.ccpwebdesign.com

Why You Need to Make a Facebook Page for Your Website NOW!

wdsAdmin — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 22:28:00 +0500

When Facebook announced the Fan pages, there were a number of mixed reviews. Some were hailing it and its integration to the new advertising platform and some hated it – claiming it was turning Facebook into Myspace. Whatever your stance is, here are 6 reasons you need to make a Facebook page for your website or company now.

Business Pages Are Indexed by Google - Most of Facebook is behind a login, preventing search engines from indexing. However, Business pages are not behind a login and thus search engines can index the page. Hopefully, people will stumble on the result in SERPs, visit the Facebook page, and then get to your site via a link .

Business Pages Include Links - Because the pages are public, you can get some nice facebook.com link credit back to your website.

You Can Send Updates to "Friends” - One of the greatest features is that you can send “updates” to friends/fans whenever you want. It’s a nice way of building a database of interested users. Send messages about new products, updated website, etc.

You Control the Page & Your Message - You are able to send the messages, edit or remove sections, and control the information to an extent.

Facebook Is A News Feed - When a someone joins a Business page, it’s published in their News feed for all their friends to read. It makes someone joining your Business page somewhat viral.

Facebook Places Is A New Platform for Small Business! - What makes Places so important is not so much the functionality (which appears to be largely lifted from existing players), but rather the fact that it's being launched by Facebook. With over 500 million users, who are automatically opted in to the new feature, it may well be Facebook that pushes geolocation into the mainstream. It's another channel for word of mouth promotion that you want to be in on from the start!

By: Sandy Mullis

CCP Web Design

Lead Designer

Facebook Ad Formatting Tips

wdsAdmin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:07:00 +0500

I have been experimenting with different Facebook Ads over the past few weeks. Thought I would share some of my successes as well as failures.

Basic Formating:
Facebook Ads only allow 25 characters in the title, 135 characters in the body text and the ads may not be larger than 110 x 80 pixels.

Tips:

As I suspected the ads that have smiling faces in the graphic work better. Something about people smiling at us that makes us want to click!
Casual ads with coupons or other offers are working better than serious business ads.
Ads with white backgrounds are clicked on more often than complex backgrounds.

Look for more tips in a few weeks!

Thanks as always for reading.

Libby Lucas

www.ccpwebdesign.com

Apple Goes Social with iTunes 10 - "Ping" Music Social Network

wdsAdmin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:46:00 +0500

Apple on Wednesday waded into the social-networking sphere with the introduction of Ping, a service with iTunes that chief executive Steve Jobs called "social music discovery."

The service is part of iTunes 10, which Apple released today.

Ping is like Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes, Jobs said at a San Francisco press event. It's a "social network all about music and built right into iTunes," he said. It centers around a newsfeed of what your friends are listening to and watching through iTunes. It provides custom song and album charts, as well as 17,000+ concert listings and, of course, deep integration with the full library of iTunes content. Users can follow their favorite artists publicly or create their own, private profiles, much like Facebook. Users can set up a "circle of friends" and share information only with those people. ITunes will then display top 10 charts that reflect what friends are downloading.

It's available on the computer, the iPhone, and the iPod touch.

"Get as private and public as you want," Jobs said. "Privacy is super simple - anyone can do it."

Ping also includes 17,000 concert listings.

It will be open to 160 million users in 23 countries immediately.

Google ‘Real Time’ Search – The Next Advertising Frontier

Admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:39:00 +0500

Amir Efrati of the Wall Street Journal released an article regarding the new “Google Real Time Search” service. He explained how the new product would pull information from blogs, facebook, twitter and other real-time posting resources. It’s a good article. Click here to read it if you get the chance.

The morsel of information that I found interesting is this new search engine will offer yet another way to sell ads. Google will more than likely offer a way to sell “ad links” on the search page or possibly within the search results themselves.

Uh Oh! Stop right there … It’s the “possibly within the search results themselves” that is the attention getter! From the moment ET ate Reese’s Pieces , product placement skillfully incorporation into our media has been the preferred ad delivery method.

Google’s motto is “Do No Evil”. So is this good or evil? Answer: Both.
It’s up to you, the individual.

I would imagine that many of you are on the uncomfortable fence post with me. It’s evil when you are trying to find a reliable piece of information that has not been tainted by an advertising/seo specialist but it’s great if you are the one selling a product. Either way, you might as well learn the process and get ahead of the curve because one thing remains true … the trend always follows the money!

A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places

Admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:40:00 +0500

Facebook has just announced Places, the long-awaited feature that brings location-based functionality to the most popular social network in the world.

Whether you’re a developer with a great app idea, a business with an interesting location marketing plan or just a regular Facebook (Facebook) user who wants to get involved with Places, there are a few details to note before you start using Places. The feature is fascinating, but it still has its limitations. And our guide isn’t without caveats, especially for users.

How to Use Places

First of all, you or a Facebook friend in your group will need a smartphone. If you don’t have an iPhone, you’ll have to use the Facebook touch mobile site on a browser that supports both HTML 5 and geolocation.

The company does plan to roll out Android (Android) and BlackBerry versions of Places, but they haven’t released any specific dates for those releases yet.

To use Places, go to the Places tab on the iPhone application or touch.facebook.com. You’ll first be asked if Facebook is allowed to know your location. Once you click “allow,” you’ll enter the Places interface. From there, you can share your location with friends, find out where your friends are (if they’re using Places), and discover new places near you.

You can add places, check in to places that already exist, and tag people who are with you. If you’re checking in for a group, make sure you tag your friends before you checkin, yourself.

Other Services That Will Use Places

Tomorrow, Facebook is opening up certain data that will allow any and all developers to access parts of Places. That means that a lot of applications will start pulling information from Places, scraping it for data about people, locations, groups and more.

For right now, though, only a few apps have been selected to push information back into Places. Initially, Gowalla (Gowalla), Foursquare (Foursquare), Booyah (creators of MyTown and Nightclub City) and Yelp (Yelp) will integrate with Facebook Places.

If you use a Yelp mobile app for checkins, you’ll be able to push those checkins to Facebook Places, as well. Gowalla and Foursquare checkins can also be pushed to Facebook Places.

Booyah plans to launch a location-based social game called InCrowd; it will be built on Facebook Places. The company says it will be “a playful social app based on interacting with people and sharing real-time posts at real-world locations” and will allow players to “socialize, meet new friends and track popularity” in the app. It will be available in the iTunes App Store (App Store) soon.

What About Privacy?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said this feature isn’t about sharing your location with the world; it’s about finding places and sharing them with your friends.

That being said, your checkins will appear by default on your profile, in the news feed and in the activity stream for that place. We’ve also noted that your friends can, by default, check you in without your explicit approval or permission.

If you want to change who can see your checkins, go to your account’s privacy settings. You’ll see that “Places I check in” is by default shared with “Friends Only.” You can change who views your checkins from this area.

If you want to change whether or not others can check you in without your knowledge or permission, you’ll have to click “Customize settings” on your privacy page, then scroll down to the “Things others share” section. You will note that by default, you enable others to check you in. You can disable this setting; there’s no option to allow checkins-by-proxy on individual approval.

Also, another default setting on the “Customize settings” page is “Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in.” When you check in, your location is visible to your friends and also to anyone else nearby. If you’d rather be more private, you’ll have to opt out of this setting.

We’ve written a bit about preliminary concerns voiced by the ACLU over Facebook Places and privacy. With much of the Places-related information being shared by default, it’s clear that most users will want to revisit their privacy settings before jumping wholeheartedly into this new feature.

Places for Businesses and Developers

If you’re a business, you can use Places to give Facebook your business’ location. Once your location has been added to Places, either by you or by another local Facebook user, just go to the Place page from Facebook.com and click the link that says “Is this Place Page your business?”

If you claim the location as your business, it will become a Facebook Page. You can then post updates to people who like the Page, update your business information and more.

Places can only be claimed by official representatives. Verifying a Place claim requires uploading some kind of official document, such as a local business license or Better Business Bureau accreditation.

If you’re a developer and are interested in using one of the Places APIs to use this feature’s technology in your application, you’re in luck. Facebook is launching a Read API tomorrow. This API will scrape checkins from identified users and their friends and will gather public data about Places, as well.

Facebook has also developed a Write and Search API that allows third-party apps to publish checkins and run queries on Places data. That’s currently in private beta; partners include Gowalla and Yelp, among others. We don’t yet have a date for when that API will be opened generally, but we’ll keep you posted.

When Places Go Wrong

In addition to changing your personal privacy settings, you can also report Places that aren’t correct or that infringe on your own rights somehow. Facebook allows users to report Places for incorrect data, abusive behavior, the permanent closure of a business or duplication of other content.

Reported Places are flagged; removal may not occur immediately.

You can immediately remove checkins from your own profile, and you can also untag yourself if someone else has checked you in without your approval. Just click the “remove” button next to the story on your profile or news feed.

This article was written by Jolie O'Dell on mashable.com