Sleazy Domain Registration Service Email

There is a special circle of hell reserved for people who send emails like the one reproduced at right. These are the scary-looking “NOTICES” that take advantage of a business person’s unfamiliarity with the technical terms of the Internet.  The messages try to get an unsuspecting website owner to buy a horribly overpriced, maybe worthless, service.

This particular email was sent to me on January 17th asking me to reply by January 18th.  The sender is creating a false sense of urgency to get me to act before I figured out what I was doing.

The formatted electronic letter says it’s a “Domain Service Notice”.   It looks like the senders are trying to trick you into thinking that you need to renew your site’s domain name registration.  Domain name registration is a real service. Domain name registration is what records you as the owner of your www.ozdachs.biz and tells everyone on the Internet where to go to see the site.  Domain name registration for .com domains currently costs under $20/year from reputable registrars.

This message is not selling domain name registration.  They are offering “Domain name search engine registration.”  I don’t know what that is.

I suspect that it is a made up product with no commerical value for your website.

You don’t have to register your domain with places like Google or Bing.  Those search engines find and read all of the pages of your site and put you in search results for free.  You can submit your site to Google, but that really isn’t necessary.  Google will find your site through in-coming links from other sites it knows about.  (You have to make sure that your site gets pointed to, but that isn’t difficult.  Writing a public post on Facebook or in a blog like this is enough!)

At most, you might submit a new website to the major search engines to try to kick-start its visibility.  Most experts don’t think you need to do this, but the search engines generally let you tell them about your site.  For free.

In any case, I cannot think of a reason why you would need to submit your site more than one time, when it is new.  Google and the other search engines regularly revisit the sites they’ve found to process and reindex the new content that’s published.

This come-on letter offers you a one-year “registration” for $75.  The senders say their “best value” is a lifetime service for $499.  I have no idea what you get for multiple years of the service.

Unfortunately some people will fall for this urgent-sounding pitch. Its wording is carefully legal: it says straight out that it’s not an invoice and you are under no obligation to pay. But, the message is skillfully formatted and it looks so official!

Luckily this sleazy message came directly to me because I am listed on the real, official domain registration for a client.  My client didn’t have to panic, and he didn’t waste his money. I know what to do with offers like this: trash them!

If you have any questions about you get in your email or USPS box, talk to me or your webmaster.  Don’t pay for a service you don’t understand!

We talked about how she had to wear so many different hats because she was running her own office.  Not only does she provide the professional advice her clients pay her for, she also has to be office quartermaster, bookkeeper, publicity agent, etc., etc., and IT manager.  She said that her computer set up was very simple, and that triggered me to launch into my evangelical discussion on backing up computer data.

She agreed with me completely that back-ups were critical.  She explained that she runs backups every week and makes two copies.  One copy she keeps in her office on an external hard drive and she keeps another copy on a thumb drive which she puts in her handbag and keeps it with her wherever she goes.

She, like me, is worried about an office fire or an earthquake which would destroy backup disks kept in the office.  Or, maybe the office would simply be inaccessible for a few weeks due to a structural problem triggered by the fire, earthquake, or even terrorism near her downtown location.  In either case, she said, she wanted to have a copy of her data with her so she could set up shop at her house or another location if there was a physical problem with her office.

I tried to ask gently if she had considered backing up over the Internet.  She had, she said, but was worried about how secure cloud backups were.  She just didn’t know if  information sent through the Internet could be kept private and if the people receiving the information on the other end could be trusted.

Mmmmm!… I couldn’t think of reasonable questions to ask her. I was more directive than Socratic. Here’s what I shared:

First, keeping a thumb drive full of easily readable information in a target for thieves — your handbag — is truly not a good practice! We’ve all heard news stories of some credit bureau employee’s laptop loaded with data being stolen from their car or from a coffee shop.  Handbags are traditional targets of theft and sensitive information should not be routinely kept there.

Second, professional back-up software encrypts your files before they are shipped off to the backup center.  What goes out to the Internet is unreadable digital gibberish. The data centers themselves are protected with best-practices security precautions.

Third, I cannot personally guarantee that all of your data will be 100% secure if you backup with one of the major backup services.  I am not a security expert.  I didn’t examine and test the services’ encryption techniques, nor am I qualified to evaluate the physical and technical security of the storage data centers.  You’re not a security expert, either. But, the companies who hold themselves out to be expert in data security and backups are willing to risk the liability of saying that your data is safe.  Two of them, Mozy and Carbonite, are industry standards for home and small business.  Since you are not an IT security expert, I think you should rely on the industry-standard-setting companies’ security assurances.

Fourth, you want your backups to occur automatically and more frequently than weekly. Automatically because when you’re busy and changing a lot of data, you’re the most likely to forget to do the backup and you’re the most likely to resent the time you spend on the manual process.  More frequently than weekly because you probably cannot afford to lose a week’s worth of work!  Once again, Mozy’s and Carbonite’s products solve the problem.  Each continuously examines your hard drive and backs up new and changed files.

After my diatribe, my friend said said she would go back to her office and sign up for a cloud back-up service that afternoon.  I think I convinced her and she was really going to do it.  Of course, she just might have been trying to get away from the crazed zealot she’d been dining with.

Ozdachs Updating a Site

I was up on New Year’s morning, changing copyright dates on websites before noon.

Yes, I am anal retentive, an anal-retentive web master, and I know when to use a hyphen.

I am also evangelical about making websites look fresh.

You don’t have to compete with me on editing your website before noon on January 1st. But, please consider these two compelling reasons to do a January cleaning of  your site:

1. Your potential clients want to know that what they’re reading is current.
   Most Internet visitors get queasy when they see “Happy Holidays” in February or “Enjoy Your Summer Vacation”  in October.  The unease turns to nausea in May and December.

   When I see a copyright date on a site that is years old, I personally wonder if the business is still active and if the information I am reading is still valid.  Intellectually I may know that the directions to a business would not have changed in the past three years.  Still, if the “Find Us” page is dated 2009, a powerful, if irrational, warning trips in my animal brain.  I want to flee to a safer, newer place.

2. Google ranks pages with fresh content more highly than static pages.
   When Google crawls your site it finds out the date each page was last updated.  It uses the modification date to give an extra boost to pages that were recently changed.  Editing the visible copyright date on each page will make Google think that the pages are recently changed and deserving of extra attention.

If you find yourself getting into the freshening-up mode, here are a couple more tips to keep your site looking evergreen:

• Only date material – even customer testimonials or company news – when you are anal-retentively committed to changing the information frequently. When the website includes praise from a client dated January 1, 2011, by January 1, 2012 it looks like you haven’t satisfied a customer in over a year.
• Remove any “Last Updated” notices on your web pages. That type of bragging was automatically added to pages using older HTML authoring tools like FrontPage, but those statements are no longer in style.When the page was last updated yesterday, those messages look great.  But,  the whole page looks suspect when the date posted is a couple years in the past.

Finally, for more information about what you should put in your copyright notice,  read the official US Copyright Office rules.

Photographer John Ater

Earlier this month I had an awful lot of fun being educated in the basics of taking pictures by professional San Francisco photographer John Ater. I had bought a Groupon for a three-hour workshop which was limited to 10 people, and right before its expiration I signed up for a Saturday Chinatown group shoot.

Ten of us showed up at Portsmouth Square for a talk, a walk, and shutter-snapping practice.  The workshop was set up to let us experience looking at the streets with the eyes of a photographer. The day was a satisfying mixture of professorial tips, individual hints, and photographic assignments… all strung together in a very informal, non-stop four-hours that covered about four blocks of territory.

John doesn’t teach how to use your camera and its features.   In fact, nearly all the class shots were taken on the cameras’ automatic settings.  Rather, John leads you to explore framing what you see, leaving spaces, and looking up and down and all around.

Most of the students showed up with digital SLRs, but John is no equipment snob.  One of his first commentaries is about his two-sided business card.  One side features a model in a department store photo shoot.  The other is an iPhone-snapped gritty city picture of people on a bus.  (Guess which one I felt was more compelling.)

John advertises the workshop as a three-hour experience.  Ours lasted over four, if you count the 30 minutes or so we gathered in a tea house and swapped photographs and commented on each others work.  That unwinding show-and-tell finale made me want to keep snapping and figuring out how to play with the images I saw.

John is offering a better-than-Groupon deal if you purchase a workshop directly from him before December 31st.  You can buy an unlimited number of workshops for just $60 each.  My Groupon was a half-price $75 and the experience would be worth the full rate of $150. I think this direct deal is a good buy.  I am happy to report that I received a certificate for another workshop as a Christmas gift!

So, if your shopping for yourself, your professional life, or for a friend, I recommend John’s photography workshop deal.

• About John’s photography workshops
• PayPal link to the $60 deal
• John’s photography newsletter — Vol. I, No. 1(pdf)
• My 50 Best Photographs from the Chinatown Workshop

If I asked for games, especially if I wanted them to run on an Xbox or Wii, people would understand what is on my list.   Instead I hear, “I can’t get you that!   It’s too much like work.  Shouldn’t you buy that yourself and declare it as a business expense?”

To support my fellow geeks… or to give hints to the family and friends of geeks, I’ll share the best 6 gifts that have been on my list:

1. A Kindle… now a Kindle Fire.
   This is probably the easiest to understand, crossover-to-the-mainstream, geek gift.  Kindle is simply a great technology to take a lot of books with you on trips without getting overweight baggage fees, plus you can get new books on a whim in less than a minute via the Internet.
   Why is this a geek gift: Only a Kindle Fire is really geeky in 2011. Other Kindles are great, but really not geeky any more (sigh!). The Fire is 1st generation, controversial, color, and probably a lot of fun.
   Cost: $199.
2. ESET anti-virus and security system.
   By now everyone knows that they need an antivirus program on their computer, and ESET’s software is the best in class.  Experts say that ESET watches for and protects against all of the known evils, and in our house it protected my computer against a virus that got on to other computers that were running a different anti-virus program.  Plus, ESET’s products run very quickly and don’t take over and slow down your computer as others do.
   Why is this a geek gift: Your geek probably has months left on their old anti-virus subscription. Giving them a better security solution without waiting until the Norton (or McAfee or whoever are using) expires is a geek luxury!
   Cost: $59.99 a year.
3. A WordPress blog hosted by Blue Host.
   WordPress is the free software that drives this blog and many of the most popular ones on the web, and Blue Host provides one-click installation and updates.  It’s the easiest to use that I’ve found.
   Why is this a geek gift: Your geek wants to share their wisdom.  Giving them a hosted blog not only will let them sound off, they’ll get to tinker, download, and tune the many add-on customizations available for WordPress systems.
   Cost: As low as $6.95 a month for hosting.  The WordPress software is free.
4. Dreamweaver.
   Fire your web designer and do it yourself!  Dreamweaver is the industry-standard web page authoring tool.  Your techy person can show their artistic design side while geeking out on the latest in scripts, panel layouts, and even mobile formats.  Hours and hours and hours of work… I mean fun.
   Why is this a geek gift: Complex, robust, and top-of-the-line software. Give this to your Geek for Christmas and you won’t see them again until Ground Hog Day.
   Cost: $399. Ouch!
5. Photoshop Elements.
   Everyone wants to edit their photos, and most of the free software does a tantalizingly okay job.  Photoshop Elements is a more satisfying group of commands and functions than the free programs.  The industry standard in photo editing is Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements is a sub-set of commands that will let you do anything a mere mortal — not a photography god — will want to do.
   Why is this a geek gift: Your geek will be able to create custom mouse pads, touch up photos for Facebook, and create a whole new visual reality.  What fun!
   Cost: Currently on sale for $89.99
6. Food for Your Hungry Neighbors.
   In our balance budgeting frenzy, government grants to local food banks have been cut back or cut out.  Too many people are un- or under-employed, and don’t bring home enough money to feed their children and themselves.  If you can afford to give your geek something, but there’s nothing that they trust you to buy, then donate a nice gift to your local food bank in their name.
   Why is this a geek gift: Because geeks are caring people.  Really!
   Cost: 100% of what you can afford.
   

May you and your geek have a very warm and happy Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Yule, and Solstice.

List of he Facebook Permissions Skype Wants

I bought a new HD webcam this month and downloaded Skype software so I can talk with someone who’s living in the Middle East with spotty phone service.  To recoup my investment I decided that I would expand my Skype universe and import my Facebook contacts into Skype.  That would let me know when more people are online, and maybe increase a chance for a chat or two.

But, really, Skype. You aren’t that good a friend for me to give you all the power you’re asking for!

I like my friends too much to let Skype do everything it wants.  Here’s what the Skype app wants:

• Access my basic information which includes my list of friends.
  This makes sense if I want Skype to give me a list of my Facebook friends that use Skype.
• Send me email.
  Okay, they already know my email address because I registered their software on my PC.
• Access Posts in my News Feed.
  Why? So, no.
• Post to Facebook as me
  I think this is just a scary way of saying that Skype can post to my wall as me when I am doing something with it.  But, no.  I want Skype to get my contact information. No more.
• Access my data at any time.
  Huh?  Why?
• Access Facebook Chat
  This stumps me.  Do they want to access chat as me?  Would this let me use Skype to video chat on Facebook?  Tell me more, Mr. Skype.
• Access my profile information.
  No.  And, I am running out of polite ways to ask “whatever for?”
• Access my photos
  Skype, keep your paws off my pictures.  I’ll give you a profile picture, but the rest are off limits, okay?
• Access my videos
  No. See above on photos.
• Access information people share with me
  No.  They are my friends.  Find your own.

I don’t mean to pick on Skype. It’s a good service.  But, really, the intrusiveness of corporate Social Media apps feels increasingly like the stalking of a creepy, socially inept voyeur who peers into your windows whenever they need a fix of humanity.

I don’t want Skype to tell people when I am using Skype to talk with other Facebook friends.  It’s just not anyone’s business.  And, I don’t want Skype to go digging around in my circle of friends of juicy marketing opportunities.

For me, it’s “No!” to Skype and to other overreaching corporations.  I am reading the Facebook permissions they want and saying know when what they’re asking for has nothing to do with what they need to deliver service to me.

The email system he’s using is the same that over 20 other of my clients have, and none of them have reported problems with messages to them bouncing back to the sender.  So, I looked at his Contact Us page to see if I could find a problem.

Oh.

When we created the site several years ago, the client was concerned about the amount of spam he was receiving.  Spammers were scraping the website and collecting email address.  They then were clogging the inboxes with the normal collection of get-rich-quick schemes and offers for panacea pills.

So, my client asked me to delete the email link and to instead list his address as Name <AT> domain.com.   His address appeared as mine would if I posted my email address as Galen <AT> ozdachs.com.

This method kept the screen scraping automated programs from collecting his email address.  It’s worked for years.

Ozdachs Business Contact Form

However, there are side effects!  Some percentage of his clients apparently cannot figure out how to cut Galen <AT> ozdachs.com, paste it into their email program, edit it to become Galen@ozdachs.com.  I’m guessing that they’re leaving in an errant space or to. Trying to send email to Galen @ ozdachs.com won’t work.

Basically, web surfers expect to be able to click on a link to send you email, or else they want to fill out a form.  You don’t want to make it fancier than these two options because some percentage of your potential clients are not going to be able to figure it out!

I use both ways, an email address that leads to a spam protected mailbox and a contact form, to keep my spam down.

The form on the right is the way to contact me that I provide on my business website.

And, I use SpamArrest to protect messages sent to my personal email account, Galen@ozdachs.com.  If you send a message to that public email address, you’ll be sent a message back asking you to click on a link to prove that you’re a human before your email is delivered to me.

These techniques keep the automated mass-mailing messages from appearing in my inboxes.

Of course, determined spammers are going to get their message to you.  Some companies hire workers in poor countries to go through sites and fill out inquiry forms with their spammy messages.  And, other bulk-mail senders respond to the spam challenge messages sent out by services like SpamArrest.

But, the use of forms with a CAPTCHA (those PQAJ characters in the picture at right) and the use of a spam challenge system will stop almost all of those unwanted email messages.

These two methods work.  Asking your customers to cut, paste, and edit your email address leaves a lot of people out.

I know what grabs me when I am editing.  When I am in PR mode and seeking media attention, I send out pieces that would appeal to my editing side.

Here are 4 Top Tips for Getting Your Story Out

1. Make your press release “camera ready” so that lazy pressed-for-for-time editors can cut and paste what you’ve submitted right into their article templates.Top news outlets don’t run prepackaged press releases  However!  Many news outlets wind up running stories that are changed very little from the original press release.

   Grammatically correct stories in paragraph form that lead with Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How stand out.  A huge percentage of press releases submitted leave out some part of this basic information!

   Write paragraphs.  Announcements that are all bullet points grab attention on the bulletin board, but they have to be re-written for most news stories.  Your material is more likely to be thrown out than lovingly rewritten by a busy editor.

2. Write your announcement like it is news.  Don’t just state the facts about what you’re doing like you’re describing a dead fish.  Use action verbs and use the headline to tease the editors into wanting to read more.

   If the event doesn’t have a natural news hook, create one!When the church wanted to publicize its anti-Iraq war stance it faced a problem: a church against war is not on any assignment editor’s list of hot news stories.

   But, the peace activists and ministers created two brilliant hooks. First, they created a Mother’s Day event that focused on the pacifist sentiments of Julia Ward Howe, the creator of Mother’s Day in 1870.  Then, they encircled the entire church block in a colorful peace ribbon which made a great visual backdrop.

   When the congregation gathered on the church steps to promote peace on Mother’s Day, television and radio and print media outlets were all represented.

3. Include pictures in your release. Conventional wisdom says that editors do NOT want photographs and that email systems for many organizations strip out photographs.  Maybe.

   However, when I wanted coverage for a new minister with five adopted children under 13 years old, I shamelessly embedded a photo of the kids in the press release.  Several major news organizations bit on the news release which, if you think of it, could have been dismissed a routine story of a congregation hiring the latest in a series of ministers. The San Francisco Chronicle created a front-page Sunday feature.
   

4. Post a summary box at the top of the page. Include the event title, date and time, press contact name and number, and target publication date. This box will let editors know at a glance what you’re publicizing and how to get more information.

When you are attracting publicity you want to do everything you can to grab the editor’s attention and make your story easy to run.  Be a great assistant to that work-worked editor, and you’ll see your story picked up and shared.

Subject: Submit to 3000+ quality directories

Do you really know what it takes to quickly
generate high-quality traffic to your Web Site?

Listen up. I must let you in on a few insider *secrets*:

Instead of waiting months to generate sales on your
site, you can start gaining the hits you want right now.

Click here to visit our website

I didn’t click and told her not to go to that site either.

Anyone who is telling you to submit to “3000+ quality directories” is trying to dazzle you with numbers and lead you down a pointless path of quantity.

Think about it.  How many Internet directories do you know about? I’ll guess that you can think of maybe 5, if we stretch the definition to include social networking directories like Twitter and Facebook.  The Internet names that come to mind the quickest, like Google and Bing, are search sites, not directories, so they don’t count.  Directories maintain a list of sites or users, and they provide some information about each entry. True directories like The Open Directory Project and Yahoo! Directory are organized by topic and let you browse as if you were walking down a library aisle.

Even if you were going to combine the number of important search sites and directories, you are still below 50.  You’re way below 50 into maybe the teens if you’re a local business only interested in showing up where potential clients will see you. If you’re selling pet grooming services in San Francisco, you probably don’t care whether or not you’re listed in a Chinese directory.

One search engine optimization (SEO) publication I subscribe to (yes, there are SEO journals!) suggests 25 directories that are worth trying to get in.  Most are manually edited, and they charge a little or a lot to be listed. Yahoo! requires “only (sic) $299″ per year to be listed, but most charges are lower.

Personally, I don’t often use directories, and think I am a typical Internet surfer in that respect. That means a major value of any directory listing is the link which Google sees from that directory to your site.  Google likes links from authoritative directories, like ODP and Yahoo!  When a good directory includes your site , Google lists your pages higher in its search results.

But, submitting to hundreds, or thousands, of unread directories is not going to impress Google or other search engines.  Nor are 3000 submissions going to increase high quality traffic to your site.

Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet for search engine optimization.  There are no automated steps that, if followed, will guarantee that  your site will show up on the top of results for searches that will make you money.

I stopped my friend from wasting her time and money responding to the spam email.  She’ll be better off doing some common sense optimizations that work!  I’ll share in another post what I told my lawyer friend to do to improve her position in Google results.

You can now again visit Ozdachs business web site, click on the Amazon logo, buy things from Amazon, and I’ll get pennies for your purchase.

Yes, Ozdachs is an Amazon associate, and over a year period I probably earn $100 or so in commissions.  Obviously, I am not seriously flogging Amazon, nor am I really depending on its revenue to feed the dogs.  I signed up because I wanted to suggest books and related items, and the program was a good way to share my recommendations.

My minimal involvement as an Amazon associate aside, the reinstatement of California associates does raise two important issues.

• Issue #1 – the relative fairness of having Internet companies deliver goods tax free when local stores have to pay taxes.  This is a political/moral question which I’m happy to talk about. Personally, I support local stores and am willing to pay up about 15% more for items from them.  I think that should be enough, since the issue of 8.5% sales tax is balanced by the cost of one-off shipping which online retailers have to deal with.  Frankly, I buy online because of selection and convenience more than pure price.  But, we can discuss about this point if you disagree.
• Issue #2 – if you own a web site, why aren’t you an Amazon associate?  Especially if you are a non-profit, why not have a recommended reading page that your members and friends can visit and see your latest reading tips.

The Amazon associate program is free.  Applying for the account and setting up commission transfers to your bank takes, what, an hour?

Once you set up your account, you can post small, tasteful suggestions that people click through to Amazon in general or you can link to a specific book or product. (Amazon also provides tools for you to create category pages and other banners, if you’re really going into eCommerce, but that’s a different type of web site than most of my customers have.)

Your Amazon recommendations are actually helpful to your web visitors.  Suggestion of quality resources is good web content!

Plus, you’ll earn some money.  Even though it’s not a lot, even $100 a year is better than $0.  And, if your web site is popular, and your Amazon suggestions compelling, you can earn considerably more.  Again, non-profits whose web site visitors want to support the cause can make noticeable commissions as supporters decide to buy from your links, knowing that they’re helping you.

Deal with the 2 Issues

Let’s chat about whether governments should continue to allow Internet sites to sell without collecting sales taxes.  At the same time, if you’re a web master, think about what books and goods you can honestly recommend, and sign up with Amazon to buy kibble for your dogs.