Breaking the Myth about Page Rank (PR)

The most difficult challenge most web designers face is getting traffic to your site. There are plenty of companies who promise to send traffic your way. Sadly, most of this traffic is not qualified. Yes, your hit counter will move higher, however, if its not qualified, you may find you have unhappy visitors to your site. Unhappy visitors will not click on your ads or purchase your products.

Once you have optimized your site, consider submitting it to every search engine. If you want to get spidered quicker in Google, have a web page with a PR of 4 or higher point to your site. Your site will be spidered within a couple of days!

One myth I would like to bust is that PR is a measure of a web site. Its not. I receive countless emails offering a reciprocal link with their PR5 or PR6 site. Unless my link is appearing on the main page, or a page that has PR6, I am not getting a share of PR6. Most likely, my link will appear on a page that has a PR2!

Page rank is Google's ranking of that specific page's relevance. Just because the main page has a PR of 4, does not make every page on the site a PR4. Beware of sites who claim that they will exchange links with you and its to your benefit since they have a PR5 or PR6. Where is your link appearing? If its on a page that has a PR of 4 or 5 or 6, great!

Reciprocal linking, if done properly, will ensure that your keywords are at the top of the search engine. If you have a popular keyword, you ll need to have more back links. Pick your link partners properly, and ensure that they are linking to your keyword.

For example: if your site is www.joesdinner.com, consider sending out requests to relevant higher ranking pages to start with, followed by lower ranking pages and ask web designers to link back in a manner so that your url is a hyperlink for your keyword, not your site url or site name.

Presuming their keyword is "best dining in new york", having links pointing to your site with an anchor tag incorporating your keywords will improve your search engine rankings dramatically.

Once you have established a collection of sites pointing to your site using your keywords, you will start receiving reciprocal link exchanges from other sites. This is where you can start to be particular.

If you want to maintain an effective PR and attract better sites for linking, follow these tips:

a) Is it indexed?
While their site may be indexed, the page where they are placing your link, is it at least indexed by google? If you type in allinurl:www.sitename.com/links/right_here.html and there are no results, consider declining their offer. If the page your link appears on has not been indexed, there is no benefit whatsoever to you. If your pages have PR, they may consider placing your link on another page. If the page your link appears on is indexed, but does not have PR, consider accepting their offer. While the page today may not have PR, it will in time.

b) How many neighbours?
The value of the page rank is shared with each of the links on that page. If you are splitting that PR with several other sites, your share of PR will be small, which doesnt help you. Reconsider accepting any link exchanges if your site is 1 of more than 30 - 40 sites that will appear on that page, unless its a very high PR. Further, if there are too many links on that page, Google may consider the page to be part of a link farm, which may end up penalizing your site.

c) Is it relevant?
Google is big on relavancy. Ensure your links pages are relevant. If you operate a site about golf, having links from cooking sites will not help you establish your page rank. It may cost you more than you get in return.

How to Find Good PR sites:

a) Do a search for them by typing in your keyword and start asking for reciprocal link exchanges. Take a look at their PR and go from there. Remember, its the number of sites that backlink to you that matters, not strictly the PR of the page. I would rather have 50 pages that have a PR1 pointing to my site, than to have 5 sites that have a PR5. Of course, if you can get 50 pages that have a PR5 pointing to your site, you are laughing!

b) Take a look at your existing link partners and check out their links pages. Its clear the people appearing on those links pages are interested in reciprocating.

c) Purchase software that will help find quality link partners.

It is important to attract higher PR sites when you are on a reciprocal link campaign. However, its not the most important thing when it comes to search engine rankings. Its the backlinks that point back at you that are key. The more of those, the better off you will be for your keyword.

Remember: every page starts off as a PR0. Just because its new doesnt mean it wont get a higher PR once google gets around to assessing a score. If the page your site appears on is indexed, and its a relevant site of quality, consider exchanging links. You'll grow a large list of link partners in a short period of time, and increase your search engine rankings in the process.

2:01 AM - By Anonymous 0

90s Web Design: A Nostalgic Look Back

A nostalgic look back at 90s web design, and a warning to anyone whose website is an accidental anachronism.

Remember the days when every PC was beige, every website had a little Netscape icon on the homepage, Geocities and Tripod hosted just about every single personal homepage, and "Google" was just a funny-sounding word?

The mid-late 1990s were the playful childhood of the worldwide web, a time of great expectations for the future and pretty low standards for the present. Those were the days when doing a web search meant poring through several pages of listings rather than glancing at the first three results--but at least relatively few of those websites were unabashedly profit-driven.

Hallmarks of 1990s Web Design

Of course, when someone says that a website looks like it came from 1996, it's no compliment. You start to imagine loud background images, and little "email me" mailboxes with letters going in and out in an endless loop. Amateurish, silly, unprofessional, conceited, and unusable are all adjectives that pretty well describe how most websites were made just ten years ago.

Why were websites so bad back then?

Knowledge. Few people knew how to build a good website back then, before authorities like Jakob Nielsen starting evangelizing their studies of web user behavior.

Difficulty. In those days, there weren't abundant software and templates that could produce a visually pleasing, easy-to-use website in 10 minutes. Instead, you either hand-coded your site in Notepad or used FrontPage.

Giddiness. When a new toy came out, whether it was JavaScript, Java, Frames, animated Gifs, or Flash, it was simply crammed into an already overstuffed toy box of a website, regardless of whether it served any purpose.

Browsing through the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine, it's hard not to feel a twinge of nostalgia for a simpler time when we were all beginners at this. Still, one of the best reasons for looking at 90s website design is to avoid repeating history's web design mistakes. This would be a useful exercise for the tragic number of today's personal homepages and even small business websites that are accidentally retro.

Splash Pages

Sometime around 1998, websites all over the internet discovered Flash, the software that allowed for easy animation of images on a website. Suddenly you could no longer visit half the pages on the web without sitting through at least thirty seconds of a logo revolving, glinting, sliding, or bouncing across the screen.

Flash "splash pages," as these opening animations were called, became the internet's version of vacation pictures. Everyone loved to display Flash on their site, and everyone hated to have to sit through someone else's Flash presentation.

Of all the thousands of splash pages made in the 1990s and the few still made today, hardly any ever communicated any useful information or provided any entertainment. They were monuments to the egos of the websites' owners. Still, today, when so many business website owners are working so hard to wring every last bit of effectiveness out of their sites, it's almost charming to think of a business owner actually putting ego well ahead of the profit to have been derived from all the visitors who hit the "back" button rather than sit through an animated logo.

Text Troubles

"Welcome to…" Every single website homepage in 1996 had to have the word "welcome" somewhere, often in the largest headline. After all, isn't saying "welcome" more vital than saying what the web page is all about in the first place?

Background images. Remember all those people who had their kids' pictures tiled in the background of every page? Remember how much fun it was trying to guess what the words were in the sections where the font color and the color of the image were the same?

Dark background, light text. My favorite was orange font on purple background, though the ubiquitous yellow white text on blue, green or red was nice, too. Of course, anyone who will make their text harder to read with a silly gimmick is just paying you the courtesy of letting you know they couldn't possibly have written anything worth reading.

Entire paragraphs of text centered. After all, haven't millennia of flush-left margins just made our eyes lazy?

"This Site Is Best Viewed in Netscape 4.666, 1,000x3300 resolution." It was always so cute when site owners actually imagined anyone but their mothers would care enough to change their browser set up to look at some random person's website.

All-image no-text publishing. Some of the worst websites would actually do the world the service of putting all their text in image format so that no search engine would ever find them. What sacrifice!

Hyperactive Pages

TV-envy was a common psychological malady in 1990s web design. Since streaming video and even Flash were still in their infancy, web designers settled for simply making the elements on their pages move like Mexican jumping beans.

Animated Gifs

In 1996, just before the dawn of Flash, animated gifs were in full swing, dancing, sliding, and scrolling their way across the retinas of web surfers trying to read the text on the page.

Scrolling Text

Just in case you were having a too easy time tuning out all the dancing graphics on the page, an ambitious mid-1990s web designer had a simple but powerful trick for giving you a headache: scrolling text. Through the magic of JavaScript, website owners could achieve the perfect combination of too fast to read comfortably and too slow to read quickly.

For a while, a business owner could even separate the serious from the wannabe prospects based just on how (un)professional their business websites looked. Sadly, the development of template-based website authoring software means that even someone with no taste or sense whatsoever can make websites that look as good as the most biggest-budget design of five years ago.

Of course, there are still some websites whose owners seem to be trying to spark a resurgence in animated gifs, background images, and ugly text. 'll just have to trust that everyone is laughing with them, not at them.

2:00 AM - By Anonymous 0

12 Steps to Creating a Business Online

"E-commerce"

A word pervading our society, making headlines around the world, and causing the stock market to rise and fall with
startling ease.

It seems every business news story centers on some technology company’s "DOT-com" or "DOT-bomb"!

With all the positive and negative hoopla, business owners of any size company can throw up their hands and feel the "E" world has left them behind.

Every business owner, salesperson, or professional asked one of two questions in the past year, either "Am I using e-commerce correctly?" or "How do I effectively get involved in e-commerce?"

You can buy hundreds of books and pay thousands in consulting fees to analyze and debate the answer to the first question.

To answer to the second question just follow these 12 steps.

Step 1 - Buy a domain name (your own DOT com). Go to www.NetworkSolutions.com and research names. Can a customer easily spell and remember it?

Step 2 - Write down your online goals and prepare a time and money budget.

How soon do you want your e-commerce site up and running?

How much will you spend?

How many hours will you devote to the site and when?

Step 3 - Surf the web to find other sites you like and dislike. Learn from others’ successes and mistakes by taking the best of what their sites offer and adapting it for your own use.

Step 4 - Design your site on paper. Define elements, look, feel, colors etc.

Step 5 - Hire a professional to set up the graphics and navigation, but with the intention of you or your staff maintaining the site’s day to day operations, communication and updates.

Step 6 - Invest in a digital camera and web publishing software such as Microsoft Front Page or Adobe Acrobat to keep up with the site’s maintenance.

Step 7 - Maintain, change, and update your site at least once a month. (The one exception to this rule are those one- page, sales letter websites. Once you have one of those that performs well and makes sales, don't change it!!)

Step 8 - Promote your site at every opportunity. Tell people about it. Put your web address on your business cards and in all your ads. Some companies even advertise their web address when they put you on hold on the telephone.

Step 9 - Give people a self-serving reason to visit your site. Coupon savings, discounts, special incentives, free information, and free newsletters represent excellent enticements for attracting visitors to your site.

Step 10 - Concentrate on obtaining an email address from every customer and potential customer.

Obtain permission to send periodic, value added malings to your database.

Use a list server to organize and maintain your mailing list.

Step 11 - Always look for and use the simplest solution or option.

Whether adding a shopping cart, database or other option to your e-commerce operation, seek out and use the simplest answer for your needs.

Step 12 - Become educated and stay current in the world of e-commerce.

Learn the marketing and sales techniques of the online world.

1:59 AM - By Anonymous 0

10 Tips For Web Success

The webmaster's biggest job is to get their traffic up and keep customers/visitors coming back. Building the site is one thing, but simply building and posting a website does not guarantee traffic. In fact, a website could be beautiful and an example of all the latest technology and still not attract a single visitor if not promoted correctly. Here are 10 tips to guide you to success with your website.

(1) The internet is a new medium.
At least compared to print, it is. A website is a waste if it simply re-hashes something which could easily be put into print. Don't have the site be just an online brochure. Put up features which take advantage of the internet as a medium of communication. Filter information for them. Provide search capability. Provide interactivity with features like forums, quizzes and tools. Web visitors like to interact.

(2) Treat the Customer's Time as Valuable.
When a person visits your website, you have their attention for that point in time. You either need to use it or you will lose it - fast. Most visitors have short attention spans, what you need to design your site homepage so that it grabs their attention and provides what they are looking for right away. Its like walking into a restaurant. If you walk in and just stand there and nobody comes to greet you, you might wonder what is happening. But, if the hostess comes and greets you right away and walks you to a table, then you will be there for awhile and eat. The same analogy goes for websites. Don't overcomplicate your website homepage. Best results will be obtained if you make it very clear where to click to find what they need.

(3) Design the site for customers, not the company.
Your site needs to satisfy the needs of customers, not the company. So, don't post content which is not really useful to the site's customer. And avoid over-flattering marketing hype about the company. It inflates the ego of the company more than it helps your customer.

(4) Involve the Visitor.
Keep the visitor involved and make them feel like a valuable contributor. Actively ask for the feedback and suggestions. Ask for communication from your visitors and answer that communication swiftly. When getting that communication, capture their email address. This will allow you to communicate with them long after they have moved on and forgotten about you.

(5) Keep it Current.
You need to have content on your website which is timely and relevant to the customer's life. Posting month-old news is not interesting. Posting dry product information which never changes is not interesting. Yes, you need to have product information and other information on your site that won't change much, but you can also post more timely content. You can, for example, post content about how your products can be used in certain situations in life. Provide tips and techniques - things which are immediately applicable and solve a problem.

(6) Pay Attention to Form/Design.
Some sites simply over-do it on the eye-candy. Big graphics just for the sake of graphics often impress the site's designer more than the visitor. Do not use graphics that are large and purposeless. Remember, some visitors may still be accessing your website via dial-up. Your site needs to load up quickly for all users. A slow website will cause your users to leave quickly. Also, pay attention to graphic and design size. Many web designers operate on fairly large screen resolutions and sometimes forget that even though a graphic looks great to you, it will appear enormous to somebody on a smaller resolution. On the flip side, don't go too light on graphics. A site which is poorly designed and using the default font and no color is not very aesthetically pleasing. Any web visitor, whether they admit it or not, judges your company by your website unless they have something else to go on. A well-designed site communicates professionalism. A poor design makes the site seem like an afterthought.

(7) Promote.
When a visitor communicates to you via email, it is best to use a web form. not only will this keep your email address from being picked up by spammers, it will also allow you to ask your customers for their email address and then store that address for later use. Employ the "push/pull" marketing strategy. A visitor coming to your website is the pull, but later you want to push content back to them in the form of a newsletter or other promotional material. Start a mailing list and use it. Invite visitors to sign up. Promotion makes or breaks a business, and as long as you respect the ethical considerations of your mailing list, you should use it.

(8) Don't Operate in a Cocoon.
The internet is a medium which is shared by millions. When you set up your website, don't operate as if you are a self-contained island. Get out there and keep in tune with what is happening on other websites related to your own. Participate in forums. Post links to other websites and ask for a link in return. Form partnerships with other sites if it is appropriate. When it comes to communication, people like personal contacts. Hiding behind general email address like "sales" and "info" is OK as long as there is a way to also email you directly. A company site which allows email direct to the management is good. Just remember how much you hate calling a company and getting stuck in their phone system. Sometimes you just want to talk to somebody. Give your visitors that ability.

(9) Have a Plan to Attract Repeat Traffic.
Use newsletters, out-going email, contests, forums, clubs, auctions - anything that will cause people to return to your website. When posting links to other websites, don't just send your visitors somewhere else. They may never return. Provide them an exit page. Give them a pop-up when they try to leave your site. Or at the very least make external links open in a new window.

(10) Track Your Visitors
Pay attention to your site's statistics and react accordingly. What are people reading? How are they finding you? Do they just come and leave right from your homepage? How long as they are on your website? Do they return? This data is immensely valuable in fine-tuning your website based on customer needs and wants. Remember, the biggest mistake of any webmaster is designing the site for what THEY want. A successful website is designed for the target audience, not to impress the site's owner.

1:59 AM - By Anonymous 0

Identity Theft Article - A Phisher Is Trying To Steal Your Identity!

Identity Theft Article A Phisher Is Trying To Steal Your Identity! Sooner or later everyone with an email account will receive a phishing attempt from some internet scammer. What is phishing? How can you protect yourself? These are some of the questions this identity theft article will provide, along with some free resources and practical advice on how to protect your online identity.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group estimates that 75 million to 150 million phishing emails are sent every day on the internet. Phishing (pronounced fishing), is online identity theft that uses spoof emails, fraudulent websites and crimeware to trick unsuspecting internet users into providing financial data, credit card numbers, social security numbers, account logins and passwords, etc.
A spoofed email looks like it is from a legitimate company, usually banks, credit card companies, paypal, ebay, etc. These fraudulent emails look like they are from the “real” company, and generally try to get you to log into your account through the links in the email. The spoof email may state that there is a problem with your account and if you do not log in and update your information your account may be suspended, restricted, closed, etc. Generally these emails try to convey a sense of urgency; if you don’t correct this problem your account will be suspended.
Trojans are increasingly being used as a phishing technique according to Sophos, a security firm. The Brizilian police recently arrested a phishing gang of 18 people who stole $37M from online banking accounts. This phishing gang would send out emails that included Trojans. Once a Trojan infects your computer, all internet activity can be monitored and transferred to the phisher. This is a serious threat as you probably won’t know that you are infected with a Trojan.
According to David Jevans, Chairman of APWG, “Attacks can, and are, coming in a variety of other flavors. Instant Messaging, exploited websites, P2P networks, and search engines are all being used to download and run key logging malcode and/or be directed to websites which may contain malcode or be fraudulent. Attackers are also not just interested in username and password access to bank accounts. Social security numbers, credit cards and other identity information are also being stolen.”
Protecting yourself against phishing scams.
• Do not give out personal or financial information through an email request.
• Always log on to your sensitive accounts by opening a new browser and typing the actual URL directly into the address bar. For example, if you receive a suspected phishing email from ebay, open a new browser and type www.ebay.com in the browser bar.
• Do not click on any link in a suspected phishing email.
• Only use a secure website to submit sensitive data. A secure sites’ address will begin with “https://” instead of “http://”
• Check the activity of your online accounts regularly.
• Make sure your browser is up to date and all security patches are installed.
• Report phishing and spoof email to: reportphishing@antiphishing.com , spam@uce.gov, and forward the email to the company that is being spoofed.
• Keep your pc protected with updated anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, and a firewall.
You may also want to install anti-phishing software.
o Earthlink ScamBlocker is a free browser toolbar that alerts you to known phishing sites. It’s free and can be downloaded at www.earthlink.net/earthlinktoolbar.
o Webroot has a beta version of PhishNet which you can download at www.webroot.com/products/phishnet/
o PC Tools Spyware Doctor offers protection against known phishing sites, spyware and blocks popups.
With the consequences being identity theft, it is imperative that you learn to protect your pc and your identity by exercising caution and installing the proper tools. Hopefully, this identity theft article has given you the information you need to avoid being the next phishing victim. Remember, legitimate companies don’t ask for personal or financial information in an email – so don’t give it to them!

1:57 AM - By Anonymous 0

7 Steps To Effectively Take Control Of Your Inbox And Reduce Spam

Everbody hates spam! I am sure spammers hate getting spam too, but they still continue to dish it out. Why? Because it is still effective. Believe it or not, many of us still click on the links or follow-up with the spam message. As long as we continue to do this, spam will exist. If everybody understood this and paid no attention to spam, the spammers will eventually give up because it costs them realy money to send out emails. It is hard to quantify what the cost of sending out one, two or fifty emails is, but 1 million or 5 million emails certainly has a cost that is not negligible. When the payback starts to get so small that the spammers cannot make a decent living, they will find something else to do. This day will come and I cannot wait for it to arrive.

In the meantime, what can we do about it. Well, I am not going to tell you that there is a perfect solution that will stop all spam, but what I will tell you is that there is a way to reduce the problem and manage it effectively using the 7 steps outlined below.

Step #1: Get Your Own Domain Name

Fighting spam effectively starts with getting your own domain name. For example if your name is Andy Williams, you would purchase a domain name called andywilliams.com, which is of course already owned by the famous singer. This has some unique advantages over using an ISP given domain name or a webmail service such as Hotmail or Gmail. It also has some minor disadvantages. Let's examine these.

One major advantage is that you control the entire email address. You could create emails addresses like andy@andywilliams.com, info@andywilliams.com, sales@andywilliams.com and so on. This is in stark contract to an ISP assigned name like andywilliams@comcast.net. If you wanted another one, you'd have to open up another account or pay extra for each additional ISP assigned address. If you ever decided to switch ISP's, you would lose that email address and have to start over using a new one, and inform everyone you communicated with about it - a very messy proposition.

Many get around this problem by getting a Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail account which you can access from anywhere as long as you have internet access. These types of email accounts definitely have a place in your email toolchest, but do not suffice as your primary personal email address. One reason is that you do not have access to your email messages and address books when you are not online, like during a long flight. Anotehr drawback is that they do not allow you to export the online address books making portability very tedious.

I prefer owning my own domain name which I call my permanent email address. I will always have this email address as long as I renew this domain name every year. The cost of registering a domain name varies from $4 to $8 per year for most common ones. This is a small price to pay for the advantages it brings you.

The one minor disadvantage of owning your own domain name is that you need to manage it yourself, or have someone do it for you. This in my opinion is far outweighed by the advantages mentioned above.

Step #2: Create Private Email Adresses

A private email address is one that nobody but your inner circle knows about. Every person that you give your personal email address to is someone that you trust and want to receive email from.

Setup one private email address for every person who is going to need to receive messages. This could be you and 5 other members of your family or 12 employees that work for you. This part is quite straightforward, you simply login to your email control panel and create new accounts for each email address that is going to be used to receive email.

Step #3: Create Public Email Addresses As Aliases

A public email address is generally known to the public. It can be specific like andyw@andywilliams.com or generic like receptionist@andywilliams.com.

A public email address is created as an email alias. An email alias is not a real email address, but an address that gets redirected to a real email address. For example, you setup receptionist@andywilliams.com as an alias that redirects to mary@andywilliams.com. Whenever some sends an email to receptionist@andywilliams.com, it will end up in Mary's inbox. If you change receptionists, you simple modify the redirect for a very elegant solution. You can then publish this public email address on a website, in a brochure, on print advertising, business cards etc. without giving away your personal email address and without having to make much changes if Mary leaves and a new receptionist is hired. This is a huge benefit and maintains your privacy as well as those of others you have created email adresses for.

How does this help with spam, you ask? By using email aliases in a smart fashion, you could very easily shut down any spam that starts coming in. Let's examine how this can be done.

Step #4: Setup the Default or Catch-all Email Address

Your email control panel will have something called a "default address" or it is also sometimes called a "catch-all address". This is a valid email address that all unresolved emails go to. If you set this up to be your personal email address for example, then you will receive all emails that are addressed to "anything"@andywilliams.com, this includes sales@andywilliams.com, joe@andywilliams.com, andrew@andywilliams.com etc. Herein lies the secret to combat spam.

Step #5: Create Specific Named Public Email Addresses As And When Required

When you are forced to register on a website where you want to get some information from, you are usually asked for a valid email address. Well guess what, you now have an unlimited supply of valid email adresses. I usually use a specific format when registering at websites - it is "websitename"@andywilliams.com. So if I am registering at a website called www.get-rich-quick.com, I would use the address get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com as my valid email address. When the site sends me an email, it gets redirected to my personal email or whatever the default or catch-all address is.

Step #6: Send Spam Back To Where It Came From, If Possible

Here comes the real bonus, if you subsequently start receiving spam addressed to none other than get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com, you simple create an email alias for get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com and redirect the email back to exactly where it came from, for example georg-bush@get-rick-quick.com. You will then never get another email from anyone using that email address ever again. This is cool and is my favourite part. Bear in mind that spammers usually send email from an address that is not their own, so if you see an address like noreply@get-rick-quick.com, then you would redirect it somewhere else, for example a Hotmail address that you setup just for redirection purposes. Please exercise some discretion here because spammers often use the email addresses of real people and we don't want these innocent people getting redirected email.

Step #7: Be Diligent In The Ongoing Management Of Your Domain

If you do this diligently for each website where you register by identifying the website name, you will very quickly know which websites are selling email addresses and which ones honor their promise not to share your information. ALl this while, nobody by your personal inner circle knows your private email address.

A real-life example in my case: I use a specific email alias for my Paypal account which nobody but Paypal knows. I have never ever received spam on this address, but I have received hundreds of spam messages on other email aliases that I have created. All of these emails supposedly come from Paypal and address me as "Dear Valued Paypal Member" or something similar, warning me that my account is going to be closed or suspended unless I click on their link and update my credit card information.

I hope that I have given you some food for thought on how to manage the ever growing spam problem by protecting yourself by taking some initiative and getting your own domain name. The added benefit is that you now have a permanent email address no matter where you choose to live or which ISP you use to connect to the internet.

There are many other ways to fight spam which I will perhaps address future articles.

1:57 AM - By Anonymous 0

Top 7 Ways to STOP Junk Email

Nothing makes me angrier than opening my email in-box to
find over 150 messages, wading through them all, and
discovering that 135 of the messages rate as nothing more
than junk.

The problem with junk email or "spam" (the popular slang
for unsolicited commercial email) only seems to get worse
with each passing day.

Luckily, we can fight back in ways that will actually cut
down significantly on the amount of spam we receive on a
daily basis.

Try these tips and see if they can't cut the spam you
receive down by at least half.

** Don't Respond

Much of the spam you receive contains an "unsubscribe" link
saying something like "To unsubscribe, click here." Do NOT
click that link.

Clicking it lets spammers know they've got a live email
address!

** Use Mailwahser

Get a program like "Mailwasher" from Mailwasher.net that
allows you to view the email you receive before you
download it.

The program makes it simple to delete dozens of emails,
including viruses, before they reach your computer.

** Use Your Filters

Your email program most likely contains filters you can use
to weed out emails containing the usual spam words like
"opportunity, $$$, sex, viagra" and a host of others.

You can set the filters to delete messages containing these
words before ever downloading them to your computer.

** Use An "Assassin"

Spam "killer" services offer users high-powered filtering,
often requiring a sender to prove their identity before an
email gets sent to the recipient.

One such service, SpamArrest.com, forces email senders to
go to a website and type in a random word before their
email gets delivered. This service has gained a lot of
popularity lately and seems reasonably effective.

** Use a Temporary Email

Maintain a public and private email address and never give
your private email to anyone other than family and friends.

Go sign up for a free email account with Hotmail.com or
mail.yahoo.com to use whenever you subscribe to a
newsletter or request a free report. That way, if the spam
ever gets too bad, you can simply abandon the free account
and open another.

Your private email address should remain safe because
nobody will know it except the people you trust.

** Never Post Your Email

Never post your private email address in forums, guest
books, news groups or on a website. Spammers use little
robots that comb the Internet looking for email addresses
they can collect and sell to others.

Always use a free account or set it up so you can shut off
the exposed email address once the spam gets too bad.

** Abandon Ship

Shut down your current account and just start over! This
may seem a drastic move, but it may represent the best
course of action if your sanity or your email box can't
handle another offer for sexual enhancements, a great
business opportunity, or a free cruise.

Notify everyone you want to know your new email address and
get on with life.

1:56 AM - By Anonymous 0

How To Avoid Spam Robots

Despite the fact that Federal legislation (the CANSPAM act) made it illegal, harvesting email addresses from the web using automated robots remains alive and well.

Spammers who need fresh email addresses release software spider programs that comb the Internet and suck email addresses off Web pages, guest books, and anywhere else you might post your email address.

Once they get your email address, spammers will trade it around like 5th graders with a new pack of Pokemon cards at recess and you can expect the avalanche of email to begin flooding your inbox.

In order to combat this still rampant practice of stealing email addresses from websites and sending people email they don't want, the following tips should help protect you.


** Break It Up **

Obviously the best way to avoid getting picked up by an email harvester is not to post your email anywhere on anyone's website (including your own).

If the only way someone can get your email is if you give it to them, that creates a similar situation to operating with an unlisted phone number.

If telemarketers can't get your phone number, they can't call.

If you must post your email address, post it in a way that a robot won't recognize it as an email address. Instead of posting YOURNAME@YOURDOMAIN.COM, you can put YOURNAME (AT) YOURDOMAIN.COM and then, in parenthesis, put (replace AT with @ to email me).

Though it seems like an extra step for legitimate email, you'll find it a very effective technique.


** Use An Image **

Currently, online spiders (ANY spider, including search engines) cannot read text that appears in a graphic or picture. If you must display an email address on a page, then do it by typing your email address into your favorite graphics program and saving the image as a .gif or .jpg. Then post the image onto your web page so people can see the email, but spiders cannot. This too creates an extra step for people because they must type in your email address, but it's an effective solution if you must display an email address on your own website.

** Use An Email Form **

Another way to cut down on spam originating from your own website is simply not to display an email at all.

Instead, allow customers and prospects to contact you through a form where they fill in fields, click a button, and your website emails you their message.

A note of caution: make sure the form script you use does not keep your email address visible in the form code.

If the form code contains the email address, spam robots can find it even though you don't see it on the page.


** Make It Hard To Guess **

Sometimes you'll get unsolicited email because a spammer guessed your email address.

It's not a far stretch to imagine that someone probably has the email Jim@yourdomain.com, so spammers will do a "dictionary" attack on common usernames.

1:55 AM - By Anonymous 0

Tips to Build Your Email Address Database

WHY BUILD YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS DATABASE?

Gaining your customers' email addresses will:

• Provide an additional channel for reaching your customers
• Increase the ROI of your marketing investments
• Significantly reduce your customer acquisition and marketing costs
• Allow you to easily measure the impact of your marketing campaigns
• Increase your customer participation and retention rates

With ongoing postal and telemarketing pressures impacting marketing budgets for many organizations this year, email marketing could become the "silver lining " for many marketers. But how do you create a successful email marketing campaign if you do not have a substantial email database? That question may be one of the largest Internet related challenges facing companies this year.

Research shows that the majority of organizations have email addresses for less than 10% of their postal files. So how do you level the playing field and start to add quality permission - based email addresses to your database?

Here are some tips that you can use to cost effectively build your email address database and increase your customer participation and retention rates:

START TO ASK FOR IT!

Every communication or touch point with a customer should start or end with a request for an email address. By utilizing the four points below, you should be able to add email addresses for 5% to 10% of your postal file over the course of one year.

1. Direct Mail Collection

Think about how much time and money you spent for copy and design on your last new direct mail piece. Most companies have started to ask their customers for their email address information within these mailings. This is a great step forward. However, companies need to look at one major improvement if they want to increase their email address collection rates.

To date, most requests for email address information have been pushed, shoved or jammed into whatever white space remains. It should be no surprise that the success rate has been less than stellar.

To improve on these efforts, you need to provide your members with a reason to release their email addresses to you. E-newsletters, purchase confirmations, petitions, and special discounts and offers are but a few of the benefits that will encourage your members to come on board.

2. Web Page Collection

Many companies have an email address collection function in place via the web. To improve your sign-up rates, add text below the email request box that informs your visitors of the special email benefits that they will receive (i.e. e-newsletters, purchase confirmations, delivery updates, etc.) upon registering. You can also utilize a pop-up link to inform users of these special benefits.

Finally, your email address request function should be available on your home page. Don't make your users go and look for it. Every click away from your home page reduces the chances of your users taking an action and providing you with their email address information.

3. Existing Email Database Collection

Don't forget to ask the members of your existing customer base for email addresses of their friends, family and associates. Viral marketing is a powerful tool to use and is extremely cost effective! You could ask them either to provide you with additional addresses or simply to pass on your newsletter, email specific offers, or other information to others they feel have similar interests.

4. Telemarketing Collection

Don't assume that your telemarketing agents are asking for email addresses from potential customers. Ensure that your agents have an updated script, which outlines the previously described benefits to potential customers of providing their email addresses.

The suggestions above are a great start! Yet they really should be viewed as a secondary plan for building your email database. To exponentially and expeditiously grow your email database, please read on!

EMAIL APPENDING

Utilizing an email appending service enables you to add email addresses for up to 25% of your postal file, all within 3-4 weeks.

Email Appending - is the process of adding an individual's email address to that individual's postal record in side your existing database. This is accomplished by matching the postal database against a third party, permission based database of postal and email address information.

Best Practices - Email Appending is not a prospecting tool. The DMA (Direct Marketing Association) and its interactive arm AIM (Association of Interactive Marketing) have guidelines in place that dictate that email appending only be used to append email addresses to your existing opt-in postal record house file.

The Process - Your opt-in postal file is securely transferred to an email appending provider, who will do an initial gross email address match of your file against its opt-in database of postal and email address records. Your appending provider will then send these matches a permission-based message prepared by you. All bounces and opt-out requests will be removed from the list. At that point a valid permission-based email address file of your customers will be delivered back to you.

Cost - Less than the price of a postal stamp!

IN SUMMARY

The first step of any successful email marketing effort is to build a permission-based email address list of your customers. The simplest, quickest and most cost-effective way to do this is through email appending, which will enable you to add email addresses for up to 25% of your postal file. Secondary efforts of email address collection via focused direct mail, web, viral and telemarketing practices are also important and will enable you to add email addresses for an additional 5% to 10% of your base on an annual basis.

Best of luck in building your email address database. As many companies have already learned, the ROI and cost savings to be achieved will far exceed your expectations.

1:55 AM - By Anonymous 0

How To Remove The Facebook Chat Spreading Viral Scam

We have been following Facebook scams for quite some time. Several of our readers reported and we saw first hand the viral spread of malicious links via Facebook Chat. Virus infested chat links are nothing new to Facebook. It is a common ploy of hackers, scammers and purveyors of malware to hack a Facebook account and then send infested links to the friends of the hacked account.

This new method of malware delivery is to use a rogue Facebook application. This is really a clever trick invented by the scammers. It is a lot easier to get the average Facebook user to install a Facebook application instead of trying to hack a Facebook account.

Below is the scam posting we ran across tonight. At first glance nothing seems that out of the ordinary. (Kudos to this user for warning his friends to steer clear of the links!) 

When a user clicks on the bit.ly link, they are presented the following Facebook application permission screen:

Now this is where things get interesting. This particular rogue Facebook application requests permission to "Access Facebook Chat." Allowing the application developer this access gives them permission to send chat messages to your friends. The people receiving these messages will likely think the link is coming from a trusted friend. We have heard reports that these links lead to viruses and/or malware infestation. 

It is also important to note that changing your password does nothing as a response to this type of attack. These chat-jacking scams use a rogue application, so the app must be uninstalled to prevent the viral spread of the scam. Changing your password only helps if the chat messages are coming from a hacked account.

One account with the rogue application installed could literally infect hundreds of users if they are unsuspecting of the link.  Now, more than ever, users must take responsibility for the applications they install and the links they click while on Facebook. Always be suspect of any links you receive via Facebook chat, and be more careful and selective of any Facebook applications you install.

If you are ever in doubt about a potentially malicious link, you can use the AVG online link scanner to check it out.

One of the most popular chat-jacking scams uses the following message (or some variation): 

haha wow, have you seen this pic you were tagged in yet? LOL 

This problem is so widespread and pervasive that we have started a petition asking Facebook to limit or require a proper vetting procedure for application developers to access Facebook Chat. Please support this initiative by signing the petition.

8:19 AM - By ADMIN 0