Search Engine Optimization

How To Avoid Internet Scams

Yesterday's incidents reminded me of how easy it is for people to be taken in by apparently legitimate offers. The scam which was brought to my attention was relatively easy for me to see through, but that's because I am familiar with how businesses operate on the internet, and that includes some of the behind-the-scenes details that are definitely not common knowledge. People with less internet knowledge might not be so lucky.

The scams are out there everywhere, and they hide behind different faces. Instead of debunking them one at a time, I've compiled a 2-part list of things to do when investigating a new business opportunity. The first part is standard precautionary measures, the second part is aimed specifically at internet businesses, and includes some information that those who don't work in the tech sector might not know.

BASIC BACKGROUND CHECKS

1. Check out the business with the Better Business Bureau. See if there are any complaints against that business, or the principals of that business. If you can't find out who owns it, beware: Legitimate businesses do not hide their owners, presidents, CEO's, etc. Remember: A clean record with the BBB is a good place to start, but it does not guarantee that the company is clean.

2. Check out the business credentials. Where is it located? Is that a valid address? Who owns it? Who runs it? If they won't give you a physical address, that's another red flag.

3. Check out the offer. If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Do your research carefully. Be particularly cautious with any "opportunity" that wants you to pay money up front, or asks for detailed information about your bank accounts (the Nigerian scam is infamous on that score)!

INTERNET INVESTIGATIONS

1. Check out the behind-the-scenes details of the website. Who owns the URL? Who is the administrative contact (should be someone in a position of authority at the same company)? Who is the technical contact? Where are all these people located? Does this information fit with what is given on the website itself? To find this information, go to one of the sites where you can research domain ownership. Network Solutions or GeekTools both offer "whois" tools. Type in the website name (for example, insyncsoft.com), and the information should pull up. Watch for red flags. In the case of the scam I learned about yesterday, the website claims they are in Czechoslovakia, the offer claims that they arein Ukraine, the admin contact is in Ohio (that street address turned out to be for a garbage facility -- nice touch, eh?) and the technical contact is in Canada. Red flags all over the place. If that information is protected or not given, that is another red flag. Again, legitimate businesses do not hide, and do not discourage people from contacting them.

2. Check out the offer. In this case, they wanted people to "process PayPal payments". First of all, no company needs a middle man to do this; PayPal payments can be made in multiple currencies to anyone with an email address! Second, no company is going to limit themselves by using only one method of payment, which requires them to pay out 10% - 20% of their profits to a middleman right away. Legitimate businesses have merchant accounts, and can process orders through a secure online shopping cart. It doesn't matter what country you're in. If your business has the right financial credentials, you can get a merchant account.

3. Check out the company. If you have the company name, do a search for it on Google, MSN, or whatever your favorite search engine is. See what else comes up. In this case, you would have quickly discovered that the domain name (www.insyncsoft.com) was for sale in 2002 -- which doesn't fit if the company has supposedly been in business since 1999. Check out their products too. This bogus company claimed to have created "successful software products" including Atrides, RelaniumPost, and X-draw. Personally, I'd never heard of any of them, and I'm not impressed by fancy names. A search for "Atrides" pulls up a site in Russian about a cat. X-draw is free software created by Riku Saikkonen. RelaniumPost gets no matches at all. These are fakes.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU UNCOVER A SCAM

1. Contact the ISP for the website. This is the company hosting the website. By hosting them, they are abetting illegal activities. Lay out the facts, and try to get the website shut down.

2. Contact the people listed as owners or contacts. Odds are, these are fake addresses, but you might get through. Make it clear that you know this is a scam and are pursuing action against them.

3. If you've been scammed, contact the authorities. Give them every bit of information you possess, and help them catch the scam artists in question.

4. If you've seen the site/scam advertised anywhere, notify the sponsor that this is a scam. In this case, the scam was posted on both Monster.com and jobseeker. They have been notified, and asked to pull the ads.

Scams exploit ignorance. Educate yourself, your co-workers, your family and your friends, and you can protect them from being taken for a very expensive ride. The half hour you spend doing background research could save you from a nightmare experience. Just ask Tina, the stay-at-home mom who lost $3000 in one month to a fake company called Insyncsoft.

SCAM ALERT!!!!! Beware of InsyncSoft.com

SCAM ALERT!!!!!

Apparently, there are people out there who like the content on some of the websites for SharpNET Solutions and our various divisions. Unfortunately, they have chosen to show their approval by stealing our content, word for word, and in one case, content was placed on a website which is a SCAM.

Accordingly, SharpNET Solutions would like to issue the following warning:

IF YOU SEE ANY POSTING FOR JOBS THROUGH INSYNCSOFT.COM, IF YOU ARE DOING BUSINESS WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, OR IF YOU ARE IN CONTACT WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, BE AWARE THAT THEY HAVE STOLEN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM SHARPNET SOLUTIONS. THREE PAGES OF THEIR WEBSITE ARE WORD-FOR-WORD COPIES OF OUR SHARPSOFT WEBSITE. FURTHER, KNOW THAT THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN USED IN A SCAM OPERATION, IN WHICH AT LEAST ONE WOMAN HAS LOST $3000.00 TO DATE. IF YOU, OR ANYONE YOU KNOW, HAS ANY DEALINGS WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, YOU SHOULD CONTACT THE FBI, TO AID THEM IN APPREHENDING THESE FELONS. SharpNET Solutions is taking immediate legal action against the plagiarism of our website copy, and the scam victim has contacted the FBI. In addition, Monster.com, who posted the bogus job offer from this company, has also been contacted.

We would also like to point out that, to date, we have found word-for-word copies of our content on 3 other URL's, all of which had ripped off this copyright-protected material in an attempt to improve their own website rankings -- in at least one case, on the website of one of our competitors.

We strongly encourage every reader of this blog to check Google to see if you have been plagiarism victims. It's very easy to do: Just cut and paste a unique sentence of your content into the Google search bar, and see what comes up. If you find that other people have used your content without your permission, we encourage you to follow up on in immediately by contacting the administrative contact, the technical contact, and also the hosting service.

Make sure that your honest, accurate content is not being used by unethical people, for unethical purposes!

The Unhappy Client

We've all had them. The clients, the projects, that no matter what you do, it just doesn't work. Maybe it's an SEO campaign that simply doesn't perform, no matter how many angles you approach it from. All the things that work for every other client seem to produce nothing at all for this one. Maybe it's a web design that the client is never happy with, despite your attempts to do everything that they ask for. Maybe it's an email campaign that fell flat on its face, or a custom software application that takes twice as long to debug as it should. Sooner or later, your one-happy client relationship turns ugly. It happens to everybody, because that's the nature of the beast.

So what do you do in these cases? To an extent, that depends on the job, on the client, and on your company's philosophy. Our company will do our best to save the client relationship in almost all cases, by offering them a few months of free SEO, a make-good email campaign, etc. Mostly, we try very hard to open the lines of communication with the client.

STRATEGIES FOR HANDLING THE UNHAPPY CLIENT:

1. TALK TO THEM. Nothing takes a client from "unhappy" to "furious" faster than feeling as though they are being ignored. If a client has expressed their dissatisfaction to you, then someone needs to get back to them as soon as possible and assure them that their concerns are being looked into. Even if the first call is just to tell them that you've got someone looking into the situation, and you'll call them back as soon as you have more information, that can go a long way toward calming the client down.

2. Research the concerns. When you do call the client back for the in-depth discussion, make sure you've got all your facts straight, and have them at your fingertips. Know the terms of the contract, know exactly what was promised and when, know if they are current on payment or not. Read through past correspondence, paying particular attention to any concerns they have expressed, and whether or not those were addressed properly. And always, always make sure that you are willing to accept responsibility for any problems on your end. Don't make a bad situation worse by not really knowing what's going on; the client will feel that you're lying to them, or that they've been passed off to someone whose job is just to shut them up.

3. Know what your options are. This comes directly from #2 above. If you know exactly what was promised and what's been done, you'll know what you can do from here. If you've more than fulfilled the contract, and the work is satisfactory from that perspective, then there might not be much more that you can do. If you've fulfilled the basic terms of the contract but the outcome was NOT satisfactory, then you should be ready to offer them a solution which will lead to the result that was promised. Know if you can offer them some "freebies", and if so, how many, and how long it will take to set things right.

4. Know when to get out. You've done everything you can, and the client is still not happy. You gave them free design work, but they're never happy, or they keep changing their minds. You've created a neat little software application that does precisely what they requested, but now they want more, or different. You've revisited their website(s) once a month for 6 months, trying to find a better way to optimize, they've got great rankings, but no traffic. Maybe they have great rankings AND traffic, but no sales. Whatever the case, there comes a time with some clients when you just have to admit that it isn't going to work out. Hopefully it doesn't happen very often, but it will happen sometimes. When that time comes, get out. Do it as gracefully as possible, be tactful, be apologetic that things could not work out, but get out before you lose more time and money on a project that is doomed to failure.

Sometimes the unhappy client has good cause, sometimes they don't. Both types of clients need to be treated the same way though, whenever possible. Be attentive, be concerned, be responsive, and be helpful. Don't burn any bridges, you never know what might happen in the future. Yesterday's unhappy client just might be tomorrow's referral. It's happened to me!

Fast Internet Marketing Results: Email, PPC, or paid inclusion?

One of the known facts of SEO is that it is not an "instant gratification" solution. What is now referred to as "organic SEO" is the process of optimizing your website for the search engine spiders, and waiting for them to index the changes and reward you with improved rankings. This process can take weeks or even months to show strong results, no matter how well the optimization is done.

So what does an SEO firm do about a client who wants to be listed on the search engines NOW? In the past, paying to be listed in the Yahoo! Directory and in LookSmart (which supplied search results to MSN) meant that a human editor would review your site within a week, and if the site was approved, then you would have a great search engine listing within just a week or two. Since these two provided your strongest traffic, there was no problem waiting a few weeks for the other search engines to pick the site up. If you still didn't get strong listings for the keywords you most wanted, or if you wanted a seasonal boost during critical sales times, you could add Pay Per Click (PPC) and buy good rankings for the keywords and phrases you wanted the most.

In retrospect, those were the easy times! Today it is much more difficult to get those strong, quick rankings. First LookSmart went from a one-time-only inclusion fee to a flat-fee PPC system. Since it still supplied search results to MSN, many people reluctantly accepted the much higher cost of LookSmart and stayed with them. As soon as MSN dropped that contract, LookSmart saw its customers head for greener pastures. Yahoo! stopped using their Directory results for their primary listings, and defaulted immediately to Google instead. Although you can still pay their annual fee for a Directory listing, many people do not feel it is worth the cost, and many people never click on the "Directory" tab in Yahoo!, so they never see those results at all.

Today's fast response internet marketing options:

1. Paid inclusion. To be listed in Yahoo!'s primary search results rapidly, you need to pay for listing in Overture's Site Match. This is almost identical to LookSmart's flat-fee PPC of a year ago. It requires a submission fee, plus a deposit, plus a flat-fee per-click charge. Your listing will appear within days, not weeks; however, this option is beyond the budget of many (if not most) small businesses.

2. Pay Per Click (PPC). The advantage to Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns is that they are customizable to almost any need. Pick your keywords/phrases, decide how much you're willing to pay, decide where you want to be listed, submit your own description. You can hold the #1 listing on several major search engines for a few days, a few weeks, or longer, depending on your budget, and cut it off anytime you please. However, for some industries, even a short-term PPC campaign can be extremely expensive, as they keywords are so competitive, and recent studies show that many consumers skip the "sponsored sites" and head straight for the regular listings.

3. Email marketing. Email marketing currently suffers from guilt by association. There are two main kinds of email marketing, and they are as different as night and day: Bulk email and permission-based email. Bulk email is what is commonly called "spam", loathed so universally that legislation has been passed to curb it, and ISP's have invested a great deal of time into building spam filters to protect their clients. On the other hand, permission-based email relies on opt-in lists, where the recipient has signed up and agreed to receive promotional emails, and in many cases has even provided relevant information such as age, income, and place of residence, to help make sure that they receive offers they are interested in. Email blasts provide almost instant feedback, and are one of the least expensive ways possible to reach a large audience. It's a great way to get the word out about your new product or new website, as long as it's done properly.

No single marketing technique is right for every client, and most clients will get the strongest response from a combination of tactics and approaches. The best ROI, long-term, is still traditional SEO, but if the client is impatient, using one or more of the options above can help give them some instant business while you wait for the spiders to do their job.

Internet Business: Not For Everyone?

Instead of approaching this from a purely business standpoint today, I'm going to take a slightly philosophical look at the internet marketplace, and who can succeed there.

Anyone who's spent time on the internet knows that certain businesses thrive and flourish there, and theoretically, anyone with a good real estate, mortgage, insurance, debt consolidation, etc., business could find solid success with a good website and some savvy marketing. Similarly, the internet has opened a number of niche markets for people who have found unexpectedly dazzling success selling fairly unglamorous products, such as tires.

But pure business aside, is the internet for everyone? It could be argued that it is not, because not everyone is up to the daily challenges presented by the world wide web. The web is a dynamic, evolving organism, which is touched daily by millions of people all over the globe. It does not sit static and grow old, and anyone who works on the internet or hopes for business success there needs to be ready to change pace with little or no warning. It's the nature of the beast. The internet offers the most advanced, most current, most "cutting edge" opportunities -- but, in order to take advantage of them, you need to be prepared to live on the edge. If you live on the edge, you need to understand that sometimes, you fall off. And you don't always land on your feet.

So is this risk for everyone? Perhaps not. That doesn't mean that people who prefer a more stable business (or life, for that matter) can't explore internet opportunities. It just means that they probably won't find themselves at the forefront of the evolution, except by accident. It means they could achieve modest success, but probably won't be one of the breakout thrill rides that have skyrocketed some people to the top. All things considered, they might be happier that way.

What does it take to stay on the forefront of the ever-changing internet? It takes a willingness to immerse yourself in it, day in and day out, so that you can be the one spotting the trends, instead of reading about them 6 months later. It takes a willingness to abandon your success formula overnight, and start again from the ground up when you see that yesterday's solution is today's problem. It takes a willingness to change your services, switch products, or revamp your website, on a routine basis. It means trying to out-guess the millions of faceless internet users worldwide, and give them what they want. For many people, that prospect is one giant headache.

For me, as of yesterday afternoon, it means trying to figure out how Yahoo!'s new search program fits into my SEO world, and that's not going to be easy. For the past few months, it has meant revisiting a lot of websites and examining the optimization used, seeing if I can tweak or improve it to please Google, who's been changing the rules constantly.

It means daily challenges and, yes, sometimes frustrations, but it's exciting, and it's a great feeling when it all comes together, and you have a website that offers the right thing, at the right time, is designed and optimized just right, and you get to see it fly to the top of the rankings and get sales through the roof. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's all worth it!

Web Design DON'T List: A Case Study

I see a lot of websites during the course of any given day. Frequently, I am called upon to do a site review and analysis for someone, so I've gotten into the habit of perusing sites with a fairly critical eye in terms of design, layout, content, and overall usability. Some sites are great, some are appalling, but most fall somewhere in the middle. Site design is critical for successful internet marketing, because all the great marketing in the world won't help you if your website doesn't get the job done. If your site cannot convert visitors to sales, then your marketing dollars are wasted.

This morning, I visited an SEO website, in the line of routine research. When I visit a web design or SEO site, I expect certain things. Specifically, I expect the site to embody all of the qualities that are being promised to the customers. The site should be clean, easy to read, load properly, and have all the navigation working. If it's a marketing site, I expect to see optimization along current internet guidelines, and I expect attention to detail.

I realize that I'm probably extremely nit-picky when looking at sites that offer similar services to ours! However, even making allowances, this site did not measure up. I felt the design overlooked some key points which should be second-nature for an SEO site, and it had not been properly proofed and checked. I'm not naming names, because this isn't about trying to make someone look bad. The point is, no one is immune to site design issues! I felt that I could do a review on this site to illustrate some of the points I raised earlier, giving specific examples of problems I encountered.

This, then, is a recipe for internet sales trouble, based on an actual case study:

1. Tiny fonts that are light in color. The content was difficult to read at best, and absolutely impossible in some cases. The navigation blended so well into the background that I'm still not certain what pages the site really has! No casual visitor will care enough to work that hard, especially in a competitive market. Rule of thumb: Create your site using Internet Explorer default settings, for the most commonly used screen resolution (still 800 x 600). You are designing for the average person, not the techie. Most of them leave the default settings on their computers, and plenty of them have vision problems!

2. Feature boxes that don't link to the pages they summarize. On the right side of the page, I found the box which summarized the information I wanted. I had to go to the left side of the page and down, through the virtually-invisible navigation, to link to the page I wanted. Very frustrating. Rule of thumb: If you're discussing something on your site, link it! Make it very easy for your visitor to find what they want, and they'll love you!

3. Unclear navigation. Many of the links had similar names, and were just vague enough that it took me three tries to get to the page I had wanted the first time. If I was a casual web surfer, I would have stopped after the first one and gone somewhere else. Rule of thumb: Links should be well-labeled and very obvious, both in placement and in meaning. Help them find what they need.

4. Incomplete information. I did finally find the marketing packages. Two had pricing, the third did not. It wasn't completely clear just what was included in the packages offered. I work in this industry. If I can't understand what the offer is, there's no way an average visitor can. Rule of thumb: Make it as easy as possible for people to buy from you... prices, descriptions, and a link to purchase immediately online. Don't talk down, but never assume people have any specialized knowledge.

5. No proofing. Among other typos, "optimization" was misspelled, as was "professional". Some of the links do not work. This gives a very bad impression. If they can't be bothered to pay attention to detail on their own site, how can I trust them with mine? Rule of thumb: First impressions count for as much on the internet as they do in real life meetings. Your site represents you and your business. Make sure that it says the right things! And from a search engine standpoint, dead links are a death blow.

Although this was a case study for an SEO site, these mistakes are very common across the board. If you want your website to generate business, you have to make it user-friendly. If people cannot read what you have to offer, they cannot buy it. If they cannot find the product/service page that they need, they cannot buy that product or service. If they cannot find pricing or descriptions, they will not buy from you. If they find information that is incorrect, they will not trust you, and will not want to buy from you.

Most internet surfers are pretty impatient. A site like this one won't keep the average visitor's attention long enough to read the logo.

Your website is your voice in the internet world. It's that crucial first impression, it's your sales pitch, it's your brochure and it's your commercial. In many cases, it is your only sales representative! Make sure that it represents you in a flattering light, is helpful and courteous, and answers all of your customer's questions. You'd fire a sales rep that gave a bad impression of your company. Your website is no less important!

Internet Marketing DON'T List

The internet offers unparalleled opportunities to succeed, but unfortunately, it also offers a wide range of potential problems for its users. I work on the internet all day, that's how I make my living. My life revolves around websites, e-zines, newsletters, email, and a great deal of online research. It can be fun, it can be fascinating, but it also makes me a prime candidate to have to deal with all of those problems and all of the abuse.

In light of which, I have composed a bit of a summary sheet for legitimate businesses. Instead of listing my favorite ways to succeed in interent business, I thought I'd publish a list of internet practices to avoid. These guidelines can help save your business from a quick internet death.

1. Don't break the law. Before you get into business on the internet, do your research and make sure that you aren't violating any state or federal laws. This not only preserves your business reputation but could save your business! Just a few of the potential pitfalls include product infringement, interstate commerce laws, replica products, and bulk email. Although some things are obvious violations, many apparently-innocent practices can get you into trouble.

2. Put yourself in the customer's shoes. Anything you don't really like, your customers probably won't like either. This means excessive use of flashing banner ads, excessive use of pop-up windows, bulk email (aka spam), or misleading advertising tactics.

3. Offer something of quality. Customer loyalty is built by offering quality goods and services, at appropriate prices, backed up by customer service. In other words, your internet business is a real business, and succeeds or fails by the same rules that apply in the "real world".

4. Make it easy for the customer. In every way. If you own a business website, make it easy for people to find the information or product that they need, make it easy for them to contact you, make it easy for them to buy what you are selling. If you offer an internet service such as searches, make it easy for people to submit a site to your search engine, make sure that your results are relevant, and make sure there is enough stability for people to rely on you.

My internet world today has been populated by three different email-borne viruses/worms, 2 websites with far too many pop-up ads, and 2 client sites that are not converting because their order process is too complicated. I have also seen Google and MSN both switch their search results again, and I'm not terribly impressed with what I'm finding in preliminary searches.

Some days the internet is innovative, other days, it can drive me crazy!

Search Engines and Web Business

I received a newsletter from Small Business Newz this morning, containing an excellent article written by Jessica Albon entitled: "Change The Way You Think About Google!"

Although the article was spurred by the furor following Google's major re-indexing a couple of months ago, it contains very sound business advice for any business owner who wants to do business on the web. Aimed particularly at those who were relying on Google for their traffic (something that SEO's have repeatedly warned people not to do), it encourages people to change the way they have approached their marketing, their website, and really their business.

The following points are emphasized:

1. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT THE SEARCH ENGINES
2. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT SITE VISITORS
3. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT FOLLOW UP
4. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT WEB PROMOTION
5. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE

The basic summary is that it's very unreasonable to think that you will get great internet traffic, tons of visitors and sales, without any investment of time or energy on your part. You may have gotten great Google traffic in the past, but remember that Google does not in fact "owe" you that traffic -- nor does any free service. I've mentioned in earlier posts that you get what you pay for, in the search engine world as with anywhere else, and anything beyond that is just icing on the cake. This article encourages business owners to think of their site traffic in terms of money -- how much is a visitor really worth, in dollars and cents? Then you know how much you can spend to get them there. It also gives some ways to coax them into buying once they've found you, and ways to keep them a loyal customer.

I wish I had written this article so I could make it mandatory reading for all of our clients!

Sharpnet Solutions

Good Spyware vs. Bad Spyware

SPYWARE. The very term conjures up the notions of something evil, doesn't it? Something that is placed on your computer sneakily, without your consent or maybe even your knowledge. It spies on you, collecting all sorts of information, and then passes that information on to shady people who will use it for nefarious purposes.

Earthlink has already initiated spyware blocking for their clients, with AOL set to unveil theirs soon. This is the latest effort on the part of internet providers to protect the average user from being abused and exploited by unethical web pirates, who launch virus attacks, plant Trojans, fill your inbox with spam, and now they even secretly spy on your computer usage! Obviously, a great evil that should be stamped out, right?

Wrong. The problem is, not all spyware is bad. So-called "spyware" comes in many shapes and sizes, and most of it is far from evil. However, it has gotten very bad press from the few instances of abuse, and now there is increasing public outcry to block spyware from your computer. Even such responsible reporting services as Reuters have jumped on the bandwagon. A recent article on the new AOL service includes phrases such as: "Internet service providers say spyware is the largest undiagnosed problem on the Web, akin to spam in magnitude."; "91 percent of broadband users have spyware or adware on their home computers, and that in most cases it surreptitiously found its way there"; "newer keystroke logging programs track what Web users type while they're logged on and can tease out such sensitive information as social security numbers, e-mail addresses, financial account numbers and passwords."; and "Spyware programs have rapidly spread as companies look for ways to gather personal information to use in targeted marketing and advertising campaigns that help boost sales." The implication is clear: Spyware is something to be frightened of. It's even compared to spam email, widely regarded by many as the scourge of the computer age. And internet marketing is placed squarely in the crossfire once again.

It's true that certain types of spyware contain Trojans, other types actually do log keystrokes and can be used to steal private information such as names, telephone numbers, addresses, credit card numbers, and social security numbers. These are easily blocked and/or removed with readily available software such as Norton Anti-Virus, McAfee, Zone Alarm, Black Ice, Ad-Aware, Anti-Trojan, and a number of other programs. Built-in security in Internet Explorer and other browsers can also block unwanted intrusions.

On the other hand, "good" spyware is routinely used by many legitimate businesses as part of their marketing. The hit tracking contained on many websites will track what domains referred the visitor, what search keywords were used, what search engines were used, what pages are being visited, how many people come back. Personal information? No. But invaluable for a responsible business owner trying to make sure that they are serving their customers' needs, and spending their marketing dollars wisely. It's a lot faster and easier than having to analyze server logs, but provides the same information.

Those of us who rely heavily on hit tracking, and the vital statistics provided, can only hope that the anti-spyware advocates don't take a good thing and make it into an evil. I hope that the new anti-spyware services being provided by internet services such as AOL and Earthlink will have some ability to distinguish between established, legitimate and non-threatening services such as HitBox or HitsLink, and malicious programs that are being illicitly placed on computers to do harm.

More Google, more panic

To tell the truth, I'm getting a little tired of re-hashing the Google situation in every blog post, but it seems there's no way to escape. Every newsletter I get, every discussion forum I visit, Google is the big topic of conversation. What exactly did Google do on their new ranking algorithm, why did they do it, what will they do next, and how can I make it all work to my advantage?

Search engines re-index all the time, but usually don't merit this degree of obsession. Yahoo! Directory re-indexed some time ago, and a few sites I know of got bumped from great rankings to being cellar-dwellers. Yet, I hear nothing of this in the industry buzz.

So why Google, and why on this change to their ranking algorithm? Simple. Google has become the most widely-used search engine in the world. This means that major changes are noticeable to a much wider range of people. It also means that major changes can affect the e-commerce fortunes of many businesses, at a very critical shopping season. I understand all this, which is why I am diligently perusing all this industry news for any new item of information. To date, I haven't seen anything new or exciting since the first few days.

The latest panic started by a brief comment at the WebPro World Forums, by Marissa Mayer of Google. She commented that if your site has lost rankings, one thing you can do is look at your link partners. If they've used spamming, then odds are, your ranking has dropped because of it. Many people interpreted this to mean that you could be punished by having a link to your site from a spammer or a link farm, and panic set in because you can't control who links to your site. It would be a great way to destroy a competitor's ranking, wouldn't it? Put a link to their website on a bunch of junky link farms, and get their ranking wiped out?

The voice of reason countered that today, by pointing out that this is so visibly open to malicious exploit that Google would surely never do it. On the other hand, Google has been pretty open about the fact that they intend to destroy the VALUE of such links -- not the sites that are linked there, but how much those links are worth. So, if your ranking depended on link popularity from a number of questionable link sites, then your ranking will almost certainly go down, because that link popularity factor has been modified.

This makes sense to me. They are trying to give good ranking to quality sites that deserve it. Any form of spamming or exploiting is probably going to be punished. Hidden text, spammed keywords, and other blatant ways to try to manipulate rankings have already been pretty much nullified. Link farms were the next big exploit, so it makes perfect sense that they were next on the chopping block.

We do very little cross-linking as a rule, and restrict it to sites that are obviously relevant and don't have link farms set up. Our sites, on the whole, have not been adversely affected by the shake-up. All I can say is that it pays to play clean!

No one knows what will happen on the next Google dance. Take a deep breath, count to ten, and WAIT. We'll know a lot more about what to do next, when we see how Google has reacted to the current situation.

SharpNET Solutions: Search Engine Marketing