NO TRUTH TO RUMOR THAT CELL PHONE NUMBERS WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO TELEMARKETERS

Without redaction there must be a retraction or at least a clarification.

My last post wasn’t completely true. Cell phone numbers won’t be given to telemarketers. Although the phone number I gave you is correct for the National Do Not Call Registry.
Some of the other information I gave you about the National Do Not Call Registry is also wrong.

Your registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. [more]

Washington, DC — For several years there has been a rumor circulating, mostly by e-mail, that a nationwide directory of cell phone numbers will be made available to telemarketers, and that consumers will start receiving telemarketing calls on their cell phones.
There is no truth to this rumor.

• Cell phone numbers are not being released to telemarketers
• FCC rules prohibit the use of autodialers and prerecorded messages to call cell phones without the consumer’s consent
• Most telemarketers are barred from contacting consumers on their cell phones
• Consumers may register their cell phone numbers as an extra protection against unwanted telemarketing calls
• Most telemarketing calls to cell phones would be illegal regardless of whether the number is listed on the National Do Not Call Registry

More information on the National Do-Not-Call Registry.
Learn more about the rumor.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE NATIONAL DO NOT CALL REGISTRY

The National Do Not Call Registry gives you a choice about whether to receive telemarketing calls at home. Most telemarketers should not call your number once it has been on the registry for 31 days. If they do, you can file a complaint at this Website. You can register your home or mobile phone for free.

Before I released the last post I checked out the phone number and it was the National Do Not Call Registry. I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. :-$

My apologies for spreading a rumor but at least now I have my cell number listed on the National Do Not Call Registry. :-}

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

National Do Not Call Registry Cell Phone Telemarketers Rumors is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Cell Phone Numbers will be Released to Telemarketing Companies this Month

All cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies this month and you will start to receive sales calls.

YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS!

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222.
(Public service post from SEO Blog.)
It is the National DO NOT CALL list It will only take a minute of your time.. It blocks your number thirty-one (31) days later for five (5) years. You will need to make the call from the cell phone number you want blocked. It is not permitted to call from a different phone number.

PLEASE HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON… It only takes about 20 seconds.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Cell Phone Numbers Go Public this Month is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

So What Does one TRILLION dollars look like Anyway?

With all the talk about “stimulus packages” and “bailouts”, “economic recovery” and a “$3.8 trillion budget”…

A billion dollars…

A hundred billion dollars…

Eight hundred billion dollars…

One TRILLION dollars…

What does that look like? These various numbers are tossed around like puppy treats.

Hang with me for a little bit and we will get a sense of what a trillion dollars actually looks like.

We will start it slowly and….

Let’s start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Everyone has seen them, even fewer are owning them these days.

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2″ thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for a week or two of fool hearty fun.

Believe it or not, this little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

While the lowly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on your standard pallet…

Now $1 BILLION dollars… we’re starting to get somewhere…

Now let’s look at a TRILLION dollars. This is that number we’ve been hearing about so much. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it’s a million million. It’s a thousand billion. It’s a one followed by 12 zeros.

$1,000,000,000,000.00

You ready to see ONE TRILLION dollars?

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

It’s pretty darn amazing.

Here you go…

1 TRILLION dollars…

(notice those pallets are double stacked and how small the man looks.)

So the next time you hear the phrase “one trillion dollars”… that’s what they are talking about. And some say they are proposing a 3.8 trillion budget.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

A friend of mine John Poling of BizNet fame sent me this information.

Make sure and share this post with your friends. If they are anything like me they had no idea what one trillion dollars looked like.

$3.8 Trillion Budget – How Much is a TRILLION Dollars? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

What can You do to Verify Urban Legends and email Scams?

I am one of the promo winners of $287,500.00 (TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS).

The first thing I did was research GT Bank Plc. It turns out that Guaranty Trust Bank plc (GTB.LG) is the third biggest bank in Nigeria based in Victoria Island.

Did your Nigerian email scams alarm go off? Mine did.

Guaranty Trust Bank plc even has it’s own website. Anyone want a MasterCard from this bank?

Guaranty Trust Bank plc corporate address:
Guaranty Trust Bank plc
Plot 1669, Oyin Jolayemi Street
Victoria-Island, Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: +234 1 448 0000, +234 803 900 3900,
+234 802 900 2900, 0700 GTCONNECT

Let’s examine the email. Take note of there being no “to” address in the email header. I didn’t remove it. This email came this way.

From: GTB@winning.com
Subject: [spam?] Fund Release Notification.
Date: March 14, 2010 7:24:01 AM PDT
Reply-To: larrywalter01@gala.net

---

Fund Release Notification.

Dear beneficiary,

You are welcome to GT Bank Plc. The payment Bank for the 2010 UN Online Promo. We are pleased to be at your service. We are Regulated and Stipulated by the Financial Service Authority (FSA), the financial institutions that govern all financial activities around the World, after a proper screening and verification excises that was conducted in our Bank today in addition to receiving confirmation from the UN and The ECOWAS Online Promotional board, that you are one of the promo winners of $287,500.00 (TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS ONLY).

This is to inform you that your funds have been deposited in our transit account and will be available for immediate transfer into your account which you are to set up, you are advice to open a Foreign Currency Account with us where your winnings can be transferred into.

This account will be activated after you have made the initial deposit from $90 USD and above as your account activation fee or you can open an online account in our bank and make your transfer online into any account of your choice.

With our online banking, you can enjoy the convenience of managing your finances quickly and easily at a time that suits you. You can bank safely and securely – at work, home or abroad.

Our online banking enables you to do the following.

1. Check your balance, monitor transactions and print your account statement.
2. Pay utility bills, transfer funds between your accounts and to other Beneficiaries.

Once you open an online account with us we shall send to you, your login information’s, enter your user ID and password and then click the login button then change the password to the one of your choice. Once you have successfully logged on, please remember to change your password by selecting the ‘Personal’ option from the menu. It is very important you keep your security details secret at all times to prevent unauthorized access to your account.

What next?

We’ll advise that you get back to us within the next 2 working days. Upon receipt of your email we shall send you our sign up application form to be completely filled, signed and return to us which will allow us to create your account.

Please Note that no deductions of any fees is allowed because we received your money in BOND and it’s been duly insured, based on our policies and as a result of the space of time available, you are hereby advised to act fast so we can provide you with the best of our banking services.

Please contact me with this email address only Email: larrywalter01@gala.net

Yours faithfully,

For: GUARANTY TRUST BANK PLC
Mr Larry Walter
MGR, E-Business & Card Services
GTBank Tel: +234-703-952-2881

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
What can we learn from this email?

• Did you notice the “[spam?]” in front of the subject?
• Mr Larry Walter is using an emil from gala.net
• Regulated and Stipulated by the Financial Service Authority (FSA)
• ECOWAS Online Promotional board is involved.
• I need to open an account with them so they can transfer my winnings there.
• No deductions of any fees is allowed because we received your money in BOND and it’s been duly insured.
• Please contact me with this email address only Email: larrywalter01@gala.net

This should be enough to verify this to be one of the email scams in use today.

[spam?] in front of the subject. This email has some spam triggering formatting and/or content.
Mr Larry Walter is using an email from gala.net. Gala.net is a Russian website. Guaranty Trust Bank plc has their own website and their own email addresses. Why isn’t Larry Walter using one?

Regulated and Stipulated by the Financial Service Authority (FSA). The Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) is an independent non-governmental body, quasi-judicial body and a company limited by guarantee that regulates the financial services industry in the United Kingdom. Its board is appointed by the Treasury. Its main office is based in Canary Wharf, London, with another office in Edinburgh. Did you catch “regulates the financial services industry in the United Kingdom”. Guaranty Trust Bank plc is in Nigeria.

ECOWAS Online Promotional board is involved. ECOWAS has been reported as being involved in many email scams and internet scams over past years.

I need to open an account with them so they can transfer my winnings there. This sets off many of my internal alarms. How about yours? Where do I set up this account? There are no links in this email to the Guaranty Trust Bank plc.

No deductions of any fees is allowed because we received your money in BOND and it’s been duly insured. This sounds like it is a plus for me.

Please contact me with this email address only Email: larrywalter01@gala.net. Right don’t contact Larry through his company’s website or website address. Contact Larry Walter though his business email address supplied by a Russian website. Who does Mr Larry Walter think I am?

This definitely isn’t one of the top internet fraud scams. How greedy does one have to be to actually bite on such a fraudulent offer?

If you are asking who do you report email scams to ftc? You might want to check out another post “email Scams – I’m Going to be a Millionaire” where I cover scam email reporting and where to forward scam emails.

Well that does it for todays lesson in being able to verify urban legends and email scams.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Email Scams and Internet Scams is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

All I Wanted Was a Free Dog From Wienerschnitzel and I got Slapped by DGWB Advertising and Zoomerang

I got an email from Wienerschnitzel just the other day. I am on their “special” list so they promise to give me special deals.

So far I did get a free chili dog for signing up. Other than that my experience with the Wienerschnitzel email club has been a total disappointment.

Back to the story… This email said if I took some of my time and took their little survey I would get to print a free food coupon at the end of the survey. They also told me that my feedback was essential.

Well I had a little time and a free dog sounded good so I proceeded to follow the link in the email (see below).

Of course the site was filled with scripts that my “NoScript” thought was dangerous. I had to temporarly allow the scripts in order to take the survey. I answered the first question about my age and was allowed to proceed to the next. Well when I arrived at this screen I was confronted with a questions along the lines of “Is any one you are acquainted with have anything to do with marketing?” in many different formations. Guess what I answered? Duh! That’s what I do.

I was then slapped in the face with a screen trying to sell me the companies services.

I don’t know who at Wienerschnitzel chose this dgwb to do their marketing but they must be smokin’ something.

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

What a great way to treat your email list Wienerschnitzel. I am opting out!

You have been invited to participate in a survey about potential new products for Wienerschnitzel. As a thank you, you will be able to print a free food coupon at the end of the survey. Your feedback is essential to our product development so please click the link below to begin the survey.

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=U2EF45Z2N7ZS

Well that’s my story. Tell us yours?

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Wienerschnitzel • Zoomerang • DGWB Advertising and Communications is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Technorati is Just Too Busy or Just Too Important to Even Send Me a Real email

As you probably know by now, back in July on the 29th, I tried to claim my blog in Technorati. This has turned out to be a project rather than a simple event. So far I don’t own my own blog and I haven’t placed the code “fcayphqgb7″ necessary to prove that I own my blog on it.
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
I even titled a post with the verification number “fcayphqgb7″ and that didn’t even work. The site still tells me they cant find the verification number.

How long will this process take?

According to their impersonal autoresopnder message it might even take weeks.

Dear Technorati User,

Thank you for contacting Technorati.  We have generated a ticket regarding: “Getting the “We could not find the claim code on your site” message?”, a summary of which appears below. Your request is in the customer service queue and will be reviewed by the appropriate department.  While we may not be able to respond personally to each ticket, we are grateful for your submission and are acting on issues which are found by users of Technorati.com.

For additional help resources, please feel welcome to browse and search our Support FAQs located at http://support.technorati.com/

If you’ve tried to claim your blog and received an error code, please make sure your blog adheres to the Techorati Blog Quality Guidelines http://support.technorati.com/guidelines/.  If it does, there is something else causing the claim to fail and we ask for your patience.  While we may not be able to respond to every request, we do save every blog claim, so you may find your blog successfully claimed in the coming days or weeks.

There is no need to reply to this message right now. Your ticket has been assigned an ID of [Support #28105].

Best Regards,
Technorati Support
trsupport@technorati.com

Sometimes those who want to be considered the big guys treat you as though you are a nobody while the truly big guys treat you as though you actually mattered.

I wonder if anyone has actually claimed their blog with the code they gave them to prove they owned it?

Late,
Gary Pool

Technorati Blog Claim Update is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Claim My Blog on Technorati > My Blog is Lost > Frustration Ensues

My blog isn’t lost to me but it must be to Technorati. They can’t find the code fcayphqgb7.
In my post yesterday I touted the ease of claiming my blog with Technorati. It appears as though I spoke too soon.
I claimed my blog all right but they can’t find the code they gave me.

fcayphqgb7

I actually put it 3 times in the post! (see screen shot below)
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
While I was going back to make sure I could claim my blog I got this forbidden message from the server. (see screen shot below)

That server problem disappeared several minutes later and I was back on the task to claim my blog.
Technorati tells me that it has to be readable in the RSS feed. (see screen shot below)
Does it look readable to you?

OK so now I get this error message: (see screen shot below)
They said:
There was a problem finding your claim code.

Please make sure your claim code appears exactly as it was provided in your blog feed (either RSS or Atom):

fcayphqgb7

If you have already verified above, please contact Technorati support with the following information:

• Please include the following error code: 400
• URL you are claiming
• The name of your blog
• Your contact info
• A short description of your blog and the type of content you like to write about.
• Does your blog have a RSS feed? Please see if you can supply us with an example URL of your feed.

I went ahead and filled out the form with all the stuff required above and I still haven’t heard anything from Technorati other than the auto-responder message that was triggered by my submission.

This time I actually used the code as the title of my post. Maybe this will work. It just isn’t fair when they pull the hoop away the last minute like Lucy is always doing to Charley Brown with the football.

I will keep you updated as the saga continues.

Late
Gary Pool

fcayphqgb7 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Can a company, especially one that is no longer in business, keep you from reporting facts about them on your website?

Here is an attempt by one such company. This ex-catering company wants to be perceived as zen but comes off as ninja.

Are they really protecting something or are they just being bullies?

As of August 1, 2007, we will not be scheduling any further caterings. Jennifer and I have decided it’s time to see the world and pursue new professional opportunities.”

When this catering company moved out of it’s building and left it vacant my client moved in and reported that they had moved into a building with a sustainable history and mentioned such on their website. The bully catering company wasn’t the first catering company in this location with a sustainable history and that was reported also.

Zen or Ninja?

The Power of Attorney Threats

They sent my client the following in an email:

We received a phone call last week from a previous client of ours who was confused to find our company name on your company’s website. As we are not affiliated with you, we were confused as well.

While I appreciate that you are indeed in our location, and hopefully enjoying it as much as we did, we are requesting that you remove any instance of our company from your website effective immediately. This includes the use of Zen Kitchen Catering, Zen Kitchen Inc., and www.zencatering.com in your content and/or metatags, as well as images affiliated with Zen Kitchen.

I have included our attorney on this email as well. Please let me know if you have any questions.”

Upon my clients request I removed any reference to the retired catering company.

Now if this would have been one of my sites I would have left it the way it was. All we were doing was reporting actual facts, not any affiliations. The only connections we sited were the location and the sustainability mind set.

Interesting facts about culinary arts or culinary artists exist in their actions. “Just the facts Mam”. Can someone control the use of their expired company name being used in the reporting of actual facts?

I believe Zen Kitchen was being very heavy handed in their handling of this. Maybe they will send me an email for quoting them and using their name on my blog?

Late,
Gary Pool

Ninja or Zen You Decide is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

LinkedIn not only a Bully but Incompetent too!

Over a week ago I spent nearly 2 hours leaving 86 LinkedIn groups after they sent me an email stating that they were limiting the groups I could be a member of to 50. See my blog post LinkedIn Just the Neighborhood Bully.

A couple of days ago I went in to manage the groups I had created and much to my chagrin all 86 groups that I had painstakingly chosen to leave were back. I was back to the 136 LinkedIn groups that I had spent my time choosing to join. These 136 groups included the 86 I had been forced to leave and spent nearly 2 hours of my time doing so.

In the email I sent to linkedIn and shared with you via my earlier post LinkedIn Just the Neighborhood Bully I had asked for check boxes to be able to select multiple groups to leave. Did they deliver such a tool? No way they gave me a “Leave Group” link.

This fancy “Leave Group” link sped up my leaving time by maybe 10%, WOW! At least this time I had a pretty good idea which groups I was going to leave. So I blew over an hour of my time once again to leave the same 86 LinkedIn groups I had already left a few days earlier.

I have spent over 3 hours of my time to appease the LinkedIn gods. That isn’t even the end of LinkedIn’s incompetency. Two days after I had left the 86 groups the second time they sent me the following email.

Dear Gary,

This is a follow-up to the email we sent on 8/4/08 regarding upcoming changes to LinkedIn Groups. Please note that your action is required by 9/12/08.

We regret to inform you that you have exceeded the limit of the number of groups you are allowed to be a member of. The limit, which applies to all users, is fifty (50) groups per user. We apologize that these limits were not in place earlier, but with upcoming enhancements to Groups, we are forced to put in these limits without exception. We’re confident that these improvements to Groups, intended to spur communication and collaboration, will make the product more useful to you on a day-to-day basis.

We need to ask you to please get below the limit of 50 by leaving some of your groups. We have added a quick “Leave Group” link to the My Groups page for each of your groups ( http://www.linkedin.com/home?myGroups=&trk=grplimit2 ). If you need assistance because you are significantly above 50 groups, customer support may be able to help streamline the process. Please email groups@linkedin.com for more information. Since this is a timely issue, we will prioritize any email with “Help Removing Groups” in the title until the deadline of 9/12/08.

If you do not take the required action by the deadline, we will automatically limit your membership to the first 50 groups you joined. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you, but unfortunately we are unable able to maintain the current level of groups.

Regards,
The LinkedIn Team

Have you checked out Konnects? This site is looking better and better to me all the time.
If you haven’t checked Konnects out yet I would suggest you do.

late,
Gary Pool

LinkedIn | Does LinkedIn Even Care? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I received an email from LinkedIn and it made me mad.

I wrote them back and here is my open letter. The original is at the bottom.

If you want us to leave groups on a mass scale why don’t you make it easy to do so?

I have carefully selected the groups I have joined and spent plenty of time doing so.

Now you want me to spend even more time to choose the ones I can’t stay in.

Give me a check box that will allow me to choose multiple groups to leave at one time.

I really used to be an evangelist for LinkedIn and still am, but there are other sites (Konnects) out there with the same services out there and some have services you don’t have.

You send me an email with no information on how many groups I am a member of just that I belong to more than 50.

What ever happened to customer service?

Are you just treating us like you did your first two domain hosts?

I feel a blog post coming on.

Dear Gary

As an active member of LinkedIn Groups, we wanted to let you know about some changes we’re putting in place in the coming weeks.

We are in the process of adding new functionality to enhance the experience of Groups, including the recent release of a searchable directory. We are also working with our development teams to bring new tools and widgets to this collaborative space throughout the rest of 2008.

We are also at this time making some changes to the user-created groups we host. These changes include adding a limit to the number of user-created groups any LinkedIn member may be part of at one time. Currently we are setting that limit at membership in 50 (fifty) user-created groups.

You are currently a member of more than 50 groups. Please take the time before this limit goes into place on August 14, 2008, to choose which groups you would like to maintain. To remove yourself from a group, go to the My Groups page: (www.linkedin.com/home?myGroups=?trk=grouplmt ( http://www.linkedin.com/home?myGroups=?trk=grouplmt )) and click the word “Settings” next to the group you wish to leave. At the bottom of the settings page click the text “Leave this group.”

We would appreciate it if you would please take this action within the next 10 days. If you would prefer, after 30 days we will automatically keep the first 50 groups that you joined and remove the rest.

If you would like assistance removing yourself from groups, or if you have any other questions, please contact us at linkedin.custhelp.com (http://linkedin.custhelp.com/ ) or groups@linkedin.com.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you, but we hope you will continue to find value in LinkedIn and especially enjoy the new functionality of LinkedIn Groups that is coming soon.

Regards,
The LinkedIn Team

late,
Gary Pool

LinkedIn | Just the Neighborhood Bully is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Yesterday I was sent a link to a video about a couple that traveled around the US for a year

My wife and I have been throwing around the idea of creating a mobile studio so we could take short trips to the Oregon Coast or where ever we’d like. The whole project is to be able to take our whole studio with us with out packing it up and unpacking it when we get to the hotel.

This other couple actually did this for a year. Sometimes they slept in the van and sometimes they used a hotel. Well… when I finished watching the video I visited their website then checked out their web person.

Snake Oil SEO

The web person was making all sorts of claims about what she could do for you and your website. She said she could do SEO so well she even touted her google rankings on some of her websites. She even has client testimonials about what good rankings she got for them. Something here hinted of snake oil to me. Many people are not aware that google will personalize your google searches for you. If you visited a site many times and run a search that site will be listed, google’s personalization will give bloated results for that site. I have a search plugin for Firefox that will circumvent googles personalization. I searched google for the terms she was using and she was close to the search engine ranking she quoted.

Keyword Research

My intuition was still screaming Snake Oil! I decided to investigate the value of the search terms she was using. I wanted to know how many people were actually using those terms on a daily basis. I use NicheBot for my keyword research it is a very reasonable priced tool and they have a full use trial version for only a buck for two weeks.

Well my my intuition was right on the money. Here are the statistics on what I found:

In a search on google for “Hip Kid Clothes” the web site shows up on the first page in the #1 position — Results 1 – 10 of about 2,430,000
Hip Kid Clothes – Predicted daily searches 0

In a search on google for “Hip Kid Clothing” the web site shows up on the first page in the #1 position — Results 1 – 10 of about 2,360,000
Hip Kid Clothing – Predicted daily searches 0

In a search on google for “online baby birth announcements” the web site shows up on the first page — number 3 out of 2,330,000
online baby birth announcements – Predicted daily searches 0

In a search on google for “online birth announcement” the web site shows up on the first page — number 3 out of 2,340,000
online birth announcement – Predicted daily searches 2

In a search on google for “golf pilates training” the web site shows up on the first page — number 1 out of 1,170,000
golf pilates training – Predicted daily searches 0

In a search on google for “pilates training” the web site shows up on the second page — number 18 out of 2,050,000
pilates training – Predicted daily searches 7

Many so called SEO experts really don’t have a clue when it comes to keyword research. What good is ranking #1 for a term only you search on. Anyone with the ability to read can promote a sites ranking very high for a keyword or search term no one else even has on their site. “hjfowefihweo” It would be easy to rank #1 for “hjfowefihweo” but what would the benefits be? Being able to say you are #1 on google?

Good keyword research will pay off many times over. If you are going to go spend the time and effort to get good search engine rankings it is probably a good idea to use words and phrases people are actually entering into the search box.

late,

gary pool

Snake Oil SEO | Keyword Research is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Shame on Aaron Wall and SEOBook.com

In the SEOBook The Search Engine Marketing Glossary Aaron includes Jason Calacanis and there is no listing for Rand Fishkin.

Now we would expect to find Danny Sullivan included in Aaron’s SEM Glossary.

The entry for Jason Calacanis:

The entry for Rand Fishkin is nowhere to be found. Aaron get with the program Rand and SEOmoz are the leaders in today’s SEO world. Jason has done nothing for the SEO world but stab them in the back. If you are going to mention Jason in your SEO glossary at least put a warning along with the entry.

Rand is one of today’s leaders in the field. He was most recently, the keynote the SMX Madrid conference as well as SEMpdx SearchFest ’08 and many others. He is more open and sharing than anyone else in the field today.

The SEM/SEO field recognizes him as one of the top experts it is time for you to do the same.

Aaron add Rand to your Search Engine Marketing Glossary!

late,
gary pool

Aaron Wall disses Rand Fishkin is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Today I got an email from Micro$oft that was extremely irritating.

You can’t even reply to it.

You have to go through the support on their website!

Dear adCenter customer,
We’re writing to let you know that we were unable to authorize or charge your MasterCard credit card, with the last four digits of XXXX, that you used when you signed up for Microsoft adCenter.

Back on January 31st I received an email from PayPal stating “Your bank declined your electronic funds transfer”. Luckily we were in the process of modifying our bank account.

I was wondering what was going on.

Now I know.

My adCenter account has been inactive for about a year and they tried to ding my card. Is this how they are going to pay for Yahoo!?

If you have ever had an adCenter account that is now inactive make sure M$ doesn’t try to gouge you.

late,
gary pool

Microsoft Tries to Charge My Inactive adCenter Account is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

According to the Netscape blog AOL will abandon support for the Netscape Browser February 1st, 2008.

AOL has a long history on the internet, being one of the first companies to really get people online. Throughout its lifetime, it has been involved with a number of high profile acquisitions, perhaps the largest of which was the 1999 acquisition of the Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was known to many as the thought leader in web browsing, and had developed a number of complementary pieces of software that allowed for a rich suite of internet tools.

Pre AOL, the Netscape browser was going strong and the favorites of many, including myself. AOL or should we say Time Warner really drug their feet after they acquired what many of us thought was a really good browser.

When they finally got around to a new release they hadn’t done anything to improve it. I think they actually ripped the heart out of it. It was never the same usable browser again. I actually hung around too long. I stuck it out for about 3 reiterations of what I hoped would be my Netscape again. But alas it never happened. I just moved on.

I am a very happy Firefox user today and have been for quite some time. I even install Thunderbird on my PeeCees. At least AOL is encouraging Netscape users to adopt Firefox.

It just goes to show it doesn’t matter how much money you have to throw at Marketing. If you don’t have a usable product, marketing can’t create a silk purse out of a sows ear.

It seems to me this is actually a pattern for AOL/Time Warner. What have the successfully taken over and improved?

late,
gary pool

Good Bye Netscape | AOL Throws in the Towel is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I attended ITEC last Wednesday and at least one of the conference sessions left a bad taste in my mouth.

The ITEC Portland 2007 conference was held at:
The Oregon Convention Center
777 NE MLK Jr Blvd
Portland , OR 97232

The Keynote Presentation by James Gaskin was a gas. It was very interesting, informative, and fun BUT…

I wonder if any one from ITEC actually had ever seen Timothy O’Connor present this topic before or are they just as misinformed as he is?

Blogging for Beginners: A Hands On Guide To Blogs and RSS
Wednesday 2:00 PM

You already know that a blog is a relatively easy way to post your thoughts on the internet. But you might not know that maintaining a blog can support your business goals, get you brand recognition and provide you with valuable and qulaified sales leads. In this session you’ll also learn about the importance of incorporating RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication) into you Blog.
Timothy O’Connor
Systems Consultant
CrossIntegration, Inc.

Timothy O’Connor is a pioneer in the field of interactive web sites, and a leader focused on the convergence of Rich Internet Applications in the corporate marketplace. In his current role he has spearheaded the incubation and implementation of progressive solutions designed to provide a high quality online experience and effective applications and environments for both consumers and enterprises. As a systems consultant with CrossIntegration, he has most recently been involved in the design of an enterprise level web application that integrates several disparate data sources and allows the user to manage their web content, products, and dealer database through customized administrative portal. He is a recognized expert in the area of new media and has more than 5 years direct experience in cutting-edge application development, customer service and innovative website design and implementation in the information technology industry. Timothy graduated cum laude from Quinnipiac University with B.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Interactive Digital Design.

Timothy tried to come off as a SEO expert telling you how to optimize your blog for the search engines. He kept referring to PageRank, which by the way is trademarked by Google, as the rank of your page in the search listings (SERPs). He even had PageRank in text many times in large bold letters in his PowerPoint presentation. According to Google and many other sources including this one from Wikipedia the description of PageRank is as follows.

A PageRank results from a “ballot” among all the other pages on the World Wide Web about how important a page is. A hyperlink to a page counts as a vote of support. The PageRank of a page is defined recursively and depends on the number and PageRank metric of all pages that link to it (“incoming links”). A page that is linked to by many pages with high PageRank receives a high rank itself. If there are no links to a web page there is no support for that page.

Google assigns a numeric weighting from 0-10 for each webpage on the Internet; this PageRank denotes your site’s importance in the eyes of Google. The scale for PageRank is logarithmic like the Richter Scale and roughly based upon quantity of inbound links as well as importance of the page providing the link.

It didn’t seem to me that he actually followed his topic description at all. How can you possibly consider this guy an expert if he can’t even get the simplest of SEO descriptions right. He should have stuck to his topic of Blogging for beginners and left the SEO speak to the experts.

PageRank is a trademarked term used by Google to determine the value of an outgoing link from a website. Search page rank which should be referred to as SERP or SERPs (search engine results page). Don’t try to teach what you don’t know!

late,
gary pool

PageRank and search page rank are NOT the Same Thing! is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I will be part of the SAO Corvallis SEM Hot Seat panel this Thursday, Nov 8, at the new Iovino’s Restaurant (in Renaissance on the Riverfront) in Corvallis.

I was trying to do my homework and look up what pages Google had for one of the sites. Using the “site:sitename.com” search and BOOM! Google drops a bomb on me.

We’re sorry…

… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.

Google you SUCK!
What good is a search engine that won’t let you search?

An automated or computer virus searches like me. Google get a clue! I just switched to Yahoo and everything was up and working like it should. Now I can continue.

If you are or happen to be in the Corvallis area this is a very informative event and it will save you a trip to Portland.

The event starts at 5:30 with social networking and food, then at 6:15 the ’30-Second Mike’ lets tech business folks share news about their company. At 7:50 we will start with announcements and the sponsor’s talk. Then at 7pm we will start the Hot Seat. Each website in turn will be brought up on the screen, the site owner will briefly describe what their basic issue is about the website’s performance, and each panelist will have a turn to comment 2-3 minutes on the site. After each panelist has spoken, if there is time, the panel can continue collaborative discussion about site, or take questions from the owner or audience.

late,
gary pool

Google Sucks is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Last week I was knocked out of the game by PAIN caused by a sinus infection. Under the pressure of intense pain I realized something – branding didn’t matter it was results that I wanted. I didn’t care how cool the product was, I didn’t care who used the product, I didn’t even care who said the product worked for them. All I wanted was relief from the PAIN.

Don’t get me wrong branding is great. But it is only great if your product or service lives up to the promises. It must relieve the pain. It doesn’t matter what that pain is. It could be lack of visitors to your restaurant, not enough golf club sales, or even excruciating physical pain. The pain must be dealt with by the product or service.

The Product or Service must be of value before you brand. Today more than ever we must be aware that return customers/clients are the backbone of our business. We can’t be one hit wonders if we are to survive as a viable business.

late,
gary pool

Branding! Don’t Waste Your Time and/or Effort … is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Yesterday I had a check and was heading to my bank, US Bank, a great bank. Back to the story. The check was drawn on Key Bank. I was driving past one branch:

Key Bank
Oak Grove Branch
14888 SE Mcloughlin Blvd.
Oak Grove, OR 97267
503-653-3341

So I popped in to cash the check. They said it would cost $5.00 to cash the check. The same price they charge at the check cashing stores. Needless to say I was not pleased.

We were told by our accountant, a fews months ago that this was not legal. They don’t charge other banks a fee to cash the checks. Why should they charge us? We had even cashed checks at other Key Bank branches where they told us they didn’t charge to cash checks drawn on their bank any more.

Well the one in Oak Grove still does. Is this a case of breaking the law or just ripping-off customers? Does it really matter? It is a case of extremely poor customer relations.

If your Brand is tarnished by even one section of your company it still affects the whole company. Your brand has to be protected. Brand protection is crucial to your company image. In the case of Key Bank you would think the Corporation would care what their branches are doing. Since they don’t what does this say about Key Bank?

I would suggest you avoid Key Bank like the plague. Would you want to write a check to someone and have them have to pay a $5.00 charge to cash it? How does that make you and your business look?

late,
gary pool

Key Bank Breaking the Law or Just Ripping-off Customers is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I recently was directed to just a website JoomlaShack.com.

One thing that really bunches my britches is a flat lie in the promises right up front on a website.

The people at Joomla!Shack promise:

XHTML valid…better by design

SEO ready…get traffic

Their own site delivers:

XHTML that fails validation according to the W3C.

A page that fails even the most basic of SEO tests, the page outline.

When you take a great program and build your business around it you should manage the products reputation with care.

The average person will look at this and blame Joomla! for the broken promises and leave JoomlaShack out of the equation.

Don’t let poor performance on the part of someone using a particular platform reflect on that platform.

By the way do you know what Joomla is?
I had an pretty good idea but I went ahead and looked it up anyway.

Here is a quote direct from the Joomla! website. (Is Joomla! related to Yahoo!?)

Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.

Joomla! is a great program. I am afraid it is failed promises like the ones from JoomlaShack.com that will tarnish its reputation.

late,
gary pool

Joomla! | Marketing Promises | Valid Code! | SEO Ready? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Well it has been 4 days and I have had a chance to recover and let the information from the conference sink in. This was a great conference and I not only learned a lot I really enjoyed it.

Here is the evaluation I promised. The InVerge 2007 conference as I saw it.

First the Pros:

• Great content
• Great speakers
• Portland is always a fantastic venue (that’s why I live here)
• Plenty of networking
• I met lots of interesting people
• The sound was incredible
• Easy public transit access
• Plenty of great food places within a short walk

Now the Cons:

• Theater style seating is not the best place for a laptop and or to take notes
• No desks
• No place to plug in your power
• Mean stage manager (works directly for the theater)
• No drinks other than bottled water and no food allowed in theater
• Poor WIFI bandwidth and function
• Construction shaking theater walls and floor

Will I go next year?
You bet I will. For a first year event this was incredible. If I know Steve Gehlen It will only get better.

The information I picked up at this conference will benefit my clients many times over.

I can’t wait for InVerge 2008.

late,
gary pool

InVerge 2007 Wrap-up is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Google Caught Selling High PageRank Links, and this isn’t the First time.
Just because Google makes the rules, does this mean they don’t have to follow them?

A recent blog post by Arron Wall from SEObook.com fueled my interest in Google’s rule bending for themselves.

Google is buying marketshare for Google Checkout by profiling merchants who use it, and giving them free high PageRank links from Google sites.

In a post on their checkout blog which currently sports a PageRank of 8, included a Long Tail link with very targeted anchor text. Here is part of a post right from the Official Google Checkout Blog posted by Alyssa England, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Checkout.

…placement on search result pages. In addition, Google Checkout helps make it even easier for consumers to find us when they search for items like Titleist Pro V1 Golf Balls by displaying the Google Checkout badge next to our search results.

Google carefully constructs a scenario where they can talk about searching for an item, and create a link to a product page on GolfBalls.com. This is just like the old bait and switch technique. They wouldn’t let me get away with this, Google would call me a spammer.

If I were Google I would do the same thing. The difference is that I wouldn’t penalize everyone else for doing what I am doing myself.

The hypocrisy at Google really burns my boat. How can they penalize us for doing something that they do them selves? If I do something that Google puts in their paid links category I would get penalized. They are even asking us as webmasters to help them by reporting these links.

Late,
seopdx/gary-pool.html”>Gary Pool

Google Caught Selling High PageRank Links is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Well it was a great Tour de France.

The tour was won by Alberto Contador (Spain), second place was Cadel Evans (Australia), third was Levi Leipheimer (USA). Only 31 seconds separated these riders. Just imagine that, over 91 hours in the saddle of their racing bikes and the top riders were only 31 seconds apart. WOW! This was the closest podium in the history of the Tour. The tour actually began in 1903.

The team honors were won by Team Discovery. Discovery took the reigns from the US Postal Service in 2004. Yes, this was the team Lance Armstrong rode and won for. This was the first Tour de France team win for the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team. The team work by Discovery was fantastic. Levi came to the tour as the team leader. After a sluggish 1st time trial and a fantastic showing by Alberto Contador in the mountains he took on the role of support for the good of the team. Levi went on to win the last time trial stage. Leipheimer finished 51 seconds ahead of Evans and almost 2 minutes ahead of Contador.

Levi is my hero and a fantastic person. He had incredible interviews throughout the Tour. This was the best Tour de France Levi has ever had and I believe that if he didn’t have to take care of Contador later in the mountains he would have won the Tour. Levi actually fell on his sword for the betterment of the TEAM. My hat’s off to Levi and I only hope I can live up to his unselfishness. Thank you Levi Leipheimer for a great Tour de France.

Now for just a bit of marketing trivia. It was said during the tour that a stage win was estimated to be worth 102,000,000 euros in publicity. Now you see why the team sponsors are so willing to step up to the table.

Late,
seopdx/gary-pool.html”>Gary Pool

2007 Tour de France | Alberto Contador | Cadel Evans | Levi Leipheimer | Marketing? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician