Category Archives: Internet

Google, Internet, SEO

Google News full of spam

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This week I wrote about Google News and the benefits of being included in Google News, however I have noticed a great many sites that are listed that don’t deserve to be listed, either through offering poor quality content, duplicate content or content hidden behind login pages.

For example, this week I was looking for some news on business travel for a particular website and found the website for airflights.co.uk listed in Google News. The article listed seemed very suspicious so I ran it through Copyscape and found that sure enough, it was taken from an article directory.

The article published on airflights.co.uk was this one, published on May 19th. This article was copied from this website, which published the article on May 15th.

Not strictly against the rules of the article site, but certainly against Google’s TOS. You can’t duplicate content from other websites and expect to rank for it. However, not only have airflights.co.uk duplicated content, they managed to get that content listed with Google News, which is ridiculous. Does this mean that Google’s news service is going to become full of duplicate content and spam results?

It shouldn’t as Google News has a manual review process in order to gain entry, so anything like this really should flagged up. Checking Copyscape is one of the first things I do when I look at a website for SEO, so you’d think Google would be on top of that, wouldn’t you?

Even so I filed a spam report for Google, so hopefully they’ll do something about it, but history shows that spam reports filed to Google don’t necessarily have much impact.

google-spam-report

We’ll see if this one gets anywhere as I’ll be monitoring Google News for airflights.co.uk to see if their duplicate content continues to get indexed as news, when it isn’t.

Google, Internet, SEO, Transformers

Why getting into Google News is important

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Google News is Google’s own news delivery service offering up-to-date information from trustworthy news sites. You can see the tab for the ‘news’ link at the top of Google when you make a search, and sometimes news is displayed on the front of Google when you search.

Now, getting into Google News is very tough. There are a lot of requirements to meet, both technical and in terms of quality of your content, but the advantages of getting into Google News are vast.

For example, if you’re in Google News you’ll find you’ll receive huge boosts of traffic whenever you write a new post, especially if that post is particularly topical. You’ll also receive hundreds and thousands of free back links from sites that subscribe to Google News, which of course vastly aids your SEO.

Here’s an example of one of my sites which is in Google News, TheTransformers.Net. Yesterday a post was written about the new Transformers movie, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. The post spoke of new photos that had been released, one of which featuring Megan Fox. For those who don’t know, Megan is a particularly searched for lady on the Internet, and my post on TheTrasnformers.Net landed itself a top place listing in Google’s organic search (via Universal Search) when the story broke, as can be seen here.

google-news-transformers

Naturally, being listed at the top of Google for a search on Megan Fox brought a wave of traffic to the site, as you can see from the stats below for May 19th.

Plus, any sites that feature Google news feeds looking for information on Megan Fox (of which there are many) also featured links to TheTransformers.Net, which helps its organic search rankings.

transformers-traffic

So you see, getting into Google News is great for your SEO and really boosts your rankings and traffic.

Incidentally, MrDaz.com isn’t in Google News, nor will it ever be… it’s not quite the site they’re looking for. Is yours?

Internet

Viruses spread by MSN Messenger: StayFriendsForever.com

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I’ve been getting some messages recently from a contact on my MSN Messenger that clearly aren’t from who they seem to be from. Rather than sending me the usual mixture of adult content and news about Steven Seagal I’ve been getting funny image links and cutesy links from this particular, earthy, northern contact.

Obviously something’s afoot. The man has a virus (this we knew years ago, but hey ho). It’s not actually ‘Eddie’ sending this rubbish, instead it’s his computor, or rather his MSN Messenger, which is infected with something nasty. It’s trying to infect others and is sending this gibberish out so that contacts click on the link and download the virus themselves.

If you’d had anything like this come through, make sure you ignore it. Equally, if Eddie Keaton messages you about anything in general, ignore that too 😉

msn-virus

Humour, Internet

Play Scalextric in the office

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gtiAs someone who likes to slack off wherever possible (just kidding if anyone important is reading this) the prospect of playing online Scalextric was just too good to be true, especially as it’s a real car, sort of.

The new Golf GTI launches in the UK on May 22nd, and as everyone who knows me is aware, I’m quite into my cars. To promote the release of the ultimate boy racer car, the folks and Volks have created an online Scalextric game where you can test out the new GTI on a virtual test track, using rendered video sequences for the race.

The game is just like the real thing whereby if you keep your finger firmly pressed on the controller you’ll find your car rapidly exiting the track, only to wait patiently while a chap in a white coat retrieves your GTI and places it, slowly, back on the road.

You can play the game online here and test your times against your mates, though I personally recommend playing against a 3 year old (that was always my tactic, and it proved very successful).

Worth mentioning too, if you set the course alight you could win a 3 month test drive of a real Golf GTI. I can’t imagine there’d be much left of one after 3 months if I drove it.

Internet, Rants

Why do people use religion as an excuse for hatred?

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I’m not a religious person. I believe that far too many wars have been caused because of religions, the differences between religions and the intolerance of people towards other religions. Without religion there would have been far fewer wars throughout history. I’m sorry if you’re religious and that offends you, but it’s true.

However, as much as I don’t believe in god, I do believe that the idea of religion is a good one. The basic principles revolve around being nice to other people, not killing people and generally making the world a better place. Despite this basic ideology, religion is rarely used in this way, instead it is used a banner of racism, intolerance, ignorance and hatred.

I do have a point, I promise.

This week the news broke about Korean scientists meddling with the genetics on dogs to create glow in the dark dogs. Whatever your feelings on this, and I’m personally against it, religion shouldn’t really come into it. Yet, despite that, some of the comments posted on the website went down the road of the experiments being against god’s wishes, which then created retaliatory posts about god not existing, and a religious war broke out… on a website about dogs.

Now, one of the comments (that wasn’t fit for publishing) harked on about how if god didn’t exist, how did we get here? It was hardly a compelling argument, but then as the poster has a personal website promoting anti-Barack Obama material and believes that Buddhism and Hinduism aren’t religions, we can’t expect a compelling argument, can we?

Anyway, here is the man’s comment in full:

Name: NObama
URL: rumblfighter.webs.com
Email: nobamaplz@yahoo.com
IP: 71.91.137.1

Submitted on 2009/04/29 at 1:43pm

*in respons to the retarded liberal comments listed above*

We Know What God Wants From The Bible/Old Testiment/Other Holy Books
Monst Religions Would Consider This Immoral.
EVEN BUDHISTS/HINDUS
(Which are not religions)

*To The Dumb-A Who Says There Is No God*

HOW DID WE GET HERE IF THERE IS NO GOD?
HMHMHMHMHMHMHMHMHMMMM?

This is where I have the whole problem with religion, or more to the point, the sort of people who attach themselves to religion and use it as an excuse for ignorance. This guy believes that anyone who doesn’t believe in god is a ‘retarded liberal’, a reference of course to Barack Obama and anyone who voted for him.

His website features many anti-Obama graphics and slogans, including one where the ludicrous idea that guns should be banned is mocked. Of course, guns are every American’s right… it’s in the Bible. Jesus was very pro-guns and a member of the NRA.

This is my point. Religion is supposed to show people a set of morals to live by, yet why do so many people think that religion gives them an excuse to spread their hatred, their racism and their ignorance to others? It’s not what religion is about.

/end rant.

Internet, Rants

Vista Print complaints

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A couple of weeks ago I needed to order some business cards. I needed them fairly quick, so decided to use the online print company Vista Print. Vista Print are one of the biggest names in print and come with a lofty reputation, I felt sure they wouldn’t let me down.

That’s where I made my first mistake. Never underestimate the ability of a company to underperform when you need them most. I paid for the seven day delivery, and waited seven days hoping they’d be here sooner.

They weren’t. They never arrived at all. I emailed Vista Print to complain and received no reply, a few more days went by. I emailed Vista Print again through their feedback form on their website, this time I received a reply ‘apologising’ for my not having received my business cards in the timescales for which I had paid.

Did they offer any compensation? Did they at least offer to knock off the postage? No, nothing of the sort. They said they’d send them again if I wanted, or refund me. Bit late as I’d needed them the week before, which was I paid for seven days delivery.

Suffice to say I won’t be using Vista Print again, they can’t be trusted to deliver an order in a timely manner.

However, it gets better. I received an email from Vista Print asking for my feedback on their service. Right, this is my chance to convey just how dissatisfied I am with them. I clicked on the feedback link, to be presented with this page.

vistaprintsurvey

Upon clicking the button, the feedback was complete.

vistaprintsurvey-result

I guess they just needed to know what language I use, rather than anything useful about their service.

Sums Vista Print up really. Their service didn’t work as it was supposed to, why would their feedback survey?

Google, Internet, Magazine Articles, SEO

5 sure-fire ways to get your website banned by Google

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I’ve got another feature running in .Net magazine in June (I’ve had quite a few now) but this one’s something of an annoyance. When I wrote the article it was titled: ‘5 sure-fire ways to get your website banned by Google’, but they thought it wasn’t a good idea to run a story like that as people might think it’s advice to be followed, rather than the tongue in cheek style that was intended.

Subsequently the article was watered down to what you see below.

Naturally the original article was better and carried more gravitas. It stated that many SEO websites and forums (including some SEO companies and professionals) offer advice that will get your website banned, and the 5 ‘tips’ presented were all the sort of gems of advice that you could receive that, should you follow, could end in your website being banned.

How to avoid getting your website banned

You can also download the PDF here.

But, if you’d rather read the original article (perhaps just to compare) here it is:

5 sure-fire ways to get your website banned by Google

In the world of SEO and online marketing, everyone looks for a way to get ahead of the competition, something that will give them that extra edge. With many SEO companies, SEO websites and SEO forums offering advice on improving your rankings, you don’t have to look far for tips. However, just how trustworthy is some of the information you’ll find?

Far from increasing your rankings, you could find that the SEO advice you’ve found actually hinders you to the point where you are banned from Google. Here are some basic tips that you may well find online that will get your website banned. Use them at your peril.

Stuff your site with keywords
The more you mention your keywords on your site, the higher it will rank! By repeating your keywords over and over again in your content, you’re sure to increase your ranking for those keywords, surely?

Copy content from your competitors’ websites
If your competitor’s website has some great content and they’re ranking for search terms, you could copy their content and paste it on your website. This means your site will rank for those terms as well. You could even find articles written on free article sites and reuse those, so you’ll have loads more pages on your site. Isn’t this a great way to get free content?

Hide text on your website
Sometimes you won’t want ugly text on your website, especially when it hinders your fluid design. You can always hide it on the page, maybe by changing the text colour to the same as the background, or by using CSS to hide it off the page. This way Google can index it and your website won’t be spoilt by its presence. Loads of SEO companies do this, so it must work?

Create doorway pages
How about creating special doorway pages focused on a specific keyword that are designed to rank in Google, and when they’re visited by a user they redirect to your front page? This allows you to create dozens of pages, all targeting different keywords, without harming your site’s look. You’ll have loads of listings within Google, vastly increasing your traffic, won’t you?

Add affiliate links
Linking to other, more established websites is sure to help your rankings. What could be better than adding hundreds of affiliate links to websites and the product descriptions for the products themselves? This will earn you money as well as improve the amount of content on your website.

All of these tips can be found on various SEO websites and are even offered by some SEO consultants, yet following the advice can lead to your website being penalised by Google and even banned from the index entirely.

Internet

Why is there no pride in Internet fraud anymore?

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Is it just me, or is there no pride in the Internet fraud industry anymore? I mean, fraudsters used to be a noble breed, with standards and ethics… well, maybe not ethics, but they had standards. There was no point being a fraudster if you were sloppy; you wouldn’t defraud many people.

These days however it seems every Tom, Dick or Amjad is committing fraud online, and standards have really slipped. I received the email below today, supposedly from Lloyds TSB, trying to get me to enter my online banking details into a phishing website. Nothing unusual there, millions of these emails are sent every day. PayPal and eBay ones are the most common, and are often quite convincing.

This email however is bloody awful. I was insulted to receive it. What’s the point in going to the trouble of setting up a fake website to capture people’s login details, sending out countless emails (which aren’t free to send, they cost you know) and then not even bothering to spell check the sodding email?

This email is scandalous. It’s riddled with typos, americanised spellings and even refers to an ATM… hello… UK?

Come on fraudsters, sort it out. Get your bleedin’ act together and write some decent phishing emails.

FROM: Lloyds TSB <onlinebanking@lloydstsb.co.uk>
Subject: Lloyds TSB Alerts : Irregular Check Card Activity

Dear Customer ,

We have informed that you have received unauthorized access to your Lloyds TSB ATM Card by date of April 08 2009 ,
We already put your account on third party until the verification is finish
We ask you now to Log-In to your internet banking and check your statment .
We asking you to Log in immidiatly to your Internet Banking and and follow this steps

1. Log-In to your internet banking by clicking here
2. Check your recent statment

Please make sure to let us know if there is any authorized withdraw from your Lloyds ATM Card

Lebel Operation :
4670659

Your account is on the third party and is will be untill you finish the steps
Lloyds TSB , United Kingdom

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This message and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named addressee(s) only.
If you have received this message in error, please notify immediately the sender, then delete
the message. Any unauthorized modification, edition, use or dissemination is prohibited.
The sender does not be liable for this message if it has been modified, altered, falsified,
infected by a virus or even edited or disseminated without authorization.
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