Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

========== NEW ====================================

From: Susan Johnson

Subject: Comparison Shopping Sites and Google

Hi all,

First of all, thank you to everyone who supplied information

regarding my last post requesting info about shopping carts for a

comparison shopping site.  We still have not committed ourselves to

any set cart program; still doing background research.

I have a couple more questions for LED'ers....

1) While we are in the process of developing the shopping site,

looking for merchants, etc, we had thought of  having a simple

landing page with simply the logo and a brief (like one paragraph or

so) explanation of the site and how it will work and a method to

contact us for more info regarding site submission and subscriptions

to the services.  This would be in the same color scheme, fonts,

etc, as we anticipate the final comparison site to be in, but sort

of like a Pre-Alert thing.

The purpose is to a) build our rankings in traditional search

engines... Google, Yahoo, MSN..etc without spending a lot of money

at first  b) build some excitement amongst any potential merchants /

consumer subscribers c) give the salesforce something to show to

their sales targets.

Now, the big question is this... if we do this, and then when we

have the site fully operational, if the site is hosted on a

different server than the one that we are currently using, if the

site has completely changed, will it hurt our rankings?  Will we

essentially have to start all over again?  Or, if the domain name

has stayed the same, should we be able to keep a decent placement?

2)  If we end up using an Adwords type of advertising campaign for

OUR site, will our merchants ALSO be charged by Google or whomever?

Part of our sales strategy will be that we are absorbing many of the

advertising costs that the individual merchants would normally have

to cover in order to enjoy a decent (I hope) position in the *big*

search engines... so... if we would sign up Tom's TV around the

corner (who doesn't even currently have a website, just wants to

advertise his bricks and mortar goods' prices along side the

chain-store competition and increase the awareness of his store's

location, his prices and special services)  will he eventually get

some huge invoice from Google or will we be charged and penalized

for that in some way?

I know what logics are telling me, but as I have learned from

reading this digest faithfully for years now, logics don't always

rule in SEO, or SEM

Thanks again

Susan Johnson

======== CONTINUING ===============================

From: Michael Linehan

Subject: Outsourcing

> I am working my way through "The World is Flat" by Friedman...

> those of us who do not embrace outsourcing to highly skilled

> but cheaper labor in countries like India and China will fade

> away like dinosaurs.

        - Peter D'Aprix, LED 2090

A friend of mine is a headhunter in the tech sector.  She was

telling me that many Silicon Valley companies are starting to get a

bit disappointed with outsourcing overseas.  Yes, the up-front cost

was cheaper, but often quality that was a little under par plus the

distance logistics have led to higher maintenance costs.

(Well, where have we seen that before? How many times is the cheap

price not, in fact, the best price?)

With the kind of troubleshooting and consulting that may be

desirable, some companies are swinging back to seeing the value in

having people a short drive or a 1-2 hour flight away.

Michael Linehan

Marketing Alchemy

------- new post - same topic ------

From: Gordon Moe

Subject: Outsourcing

We have done a couple of different projects with overseas

programmers with decent success, HOWEVER, the language barrier is

frustrating on larger projects.

We found ourselves typing two page email messages and continually

asking ourselves if we should phrase something differently so that

it might be understood.

In yesterdays paper I was introduced to http://www.yackpack.com/

which might eliminate some of the hassles of these lengthy emails.

Think email, but with voice.

We've used a local programmer for recent projects and while he is

300% more expensive, working with him is much easier.

In a nutshell, we've outsourced overseas and plan to do it again,

but recently we've enjoyed clear communications with our local

programmer.

Gordon Moe, Co-Owner

http://ebirdseed.com

------- new post - new topic ------

From: Richard Dudley

Subject: Secure servers

> I closed out of the page without placing my

> order... can there be encryption and stuff

> on a page without the https://~ in the URL?

        - Tom Anson, LED 2090

Tom,

The important encryption happens when the form is sent back to the

server.  You can view the source of the page, and find the FORM tag

for the order form (there might be several depending on what else,

such as searches or whatnot on the page).  The ACTION attribute

should begin https://~ if the page itself doesn't.  If you see this,

your information should be encrypted.

It was common for a long time to encrypt the entire checkout process

-- it was easier, and the presence of the lock was reassuring.

However, the encryption / decryption requires processor power, and

some major sites are only encrypting the important parts of the

transmission in order to save CPU cycles.  A little unsettling,

especially after nearly a decade of training to "look for the lock",

but still secure.

If the page itself isn't https://~, and the form's ACTION isn't

https://~, then you were right to bail out.

I still have the form sent as HTTPS because the encryption is more

apparent.

Rich Dudley

The Bloomery

www.bloomery.com

==== BILLBOARD ===================================

From: Tom Aman

Subject: Phish spam

> How many of these e-mails do people

> get? And who are they from?

        - James Miller, LED 2090

I probably get 4 to 8 phishing emails a day.  Many are for American

banks (I am in Canada), occasionally one is for a Canadian Bank, and

I have had them for UK banks (LLoyds, Halifax and Barclays) but the

most regular phishing emails are for eBay and PayPal.  Some are

quite funny because very often the English is bad.

Who are they from?  Basically, they are from someone hoping to get

access to your bank account, eBay account, PayPal account or

identity information. Check the link that they want you to click

(don't actually click it because some may try to send you a virus),

then use a site such as http://www.dnsstuff.com/ to do a Whois

lookup on the IP address or site name within the link.  This will

often point to a hosting company.

I have also seen links such as "123.123.123.123:1234" and when the

IP address portion (everything in front of the colon) is checked it

points to some legitimate company.  The number after the colon is a

port number.  This situation usually indicates that the company's

computer has been penetrated and the low-life is using it to capture

the phishing info.  HTTP normally defaults to port 80, occasionally

an IP will show with some other port such as 8080, in a phishing

situation the port is likely an unusual number - a port number that

is unlikely to be used by the company for anything else.

In either case, forward the email with complete headers (easiest way

is to "forward as an attachment") with a brief comment that it is a

phishing email and would they please take care of the problem.  It

also doesn't hurt to forward the email with complete headers to the

targetted bank / eBay / PayPal to alert them in case they do not

already know about it.

> By the way, I would never bank with anybody

> who was the target of a lot of phishing e-mails.

I have one question for James.  Why would you never bank with

anybody who was the target of a lot of phishing emails?  The bank is

already being victimized.  Why blame them for the problem?  As long

as you don't fall for the phishing scam, the fact that they have

been targetted is not going to affect you in any way.

Tom Aman

Aman Software

http://www.cyberspyder.com

-------------------------------------------------------

The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks:

pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains

© Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Thoughts are like arrows: once released, they strike their mark.

Guard them well or one day you may be your own victim."  - Navajo