Banned By Google And Back Again.

The date: 29th July 2005. The time: early morning. I got out of bed and fired up my PC. Opened my browser to check my site. Had a look at the third-party Google toolbar plugin (http://toolbar.google.com/) on said browser (FireFox). It showed grey.

Ice formed in my stomach. I opened my bugged version of Internet Explorer: my PageRank was 0. By now I was frantic. I went to http://www.google.com and typed in 'site:www.tigertom.com': no pages listed. I did this for two other satellite sites of mine: ditto.

What had happened?

TigerTom.Com (http://www.tigertom.com) had been banned by Google. I went to the WebmasterWorld forum (http://www.webmasterworld.com), and found out the awful truth. Google was doing one of its periodic updates of its algorithm, and had filtered out my sites completely.

Further research there, and a bit of soul-searching, revealed why. I had too many pseudo-directory pages with auto-generated external links. Snippets from search engine results were used as descriptions of said links. Said links were run though a redirect script. These are hallmarks of pseudo-directories and 'AdSense scraper'* sites. Google is reportedly trying to filter these from its 'SERPs'**. I say reportedly, because Google doesn't announce these purges. They are inferred.

To compound my sins, these pages were also effectively doorway pages†.

The theory was that legitimate sites had been hit as 'collateral damage'. I say theory, in that Google rarely comments on individual cases. It won't tell you exactly why your site was banned. I guess this is for reasons of time, and to give no clues to spammers.

In my case the ban was justified for my two satellite sites; while not looking like spam, they were effectively doorway sites.

My main site was different. It had offending pages, but was mostly a diverse labour of seven years; a personal site on steroids.

Google bans sites algorithmically: a site that fits their 'spammer' profile gets dropped via software from their index automatically. Real spammers shrug their shoulders and move on; honest webmasters write emails begging for mercy.

Like me.

I did some searching via Google, to find out how to do a re-inclusion request. Here's how:

1. First, you check your site is truly gone, by going to http://www.google.com, typing 'site:www.yourdomain.com' without the apostrophes. If it returns no pages at all ...

2. You check Google's webmaster guidelines at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html. These are not really guidelines; you should treat them as iron-clad rules.

3. You stop the offending content from being web-accessible, permanently.

If you're familiar with Apache web-server mod_rewrite you can:

- Send a 410 'Gone' response to requests for the offending pages, or
- CHMOD them to 600, which will return a 403 'Forbidden' response, or
- Move them to a different directory if you need to keep them, or
- Just delete them.

Don't try to be clever. Just get rid of them.

4. You go to http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py, tick the relevant boxes, and type 'Re-inclusion request' in the subject box of the form.

4a. You add the complete URL of your site i.e. http://www.naughtydomain.com,

4b. You state that you have read the webmaster guidelines above,

4c. You admit what you did wrong; simply, succinctly, with no carping or special pleading.

Don't try to be clever. Don't argue. Don't lie. Don't waffle.

Google has cached copies of your site. When an engineer checks your site, he'll look for the offending content, and compare it against their cache. He'll spend about two minutes on it; don't give him a reason to continue to exclude you.

5. You ask for re-inclusion.

6. You wait.

In my case, it took about a week; a long, unpleasant, fretful week. I sent follow up emails saying what I was doing, and a fax, and I was going to write letters if that didn't work. That was probably excessive. Once you have a ticket number, that's all that should be necessary.

They emailed a standard reply saying "the problem had been passed to their engineers". That's good. I understand they send no reply to spammers.

A week later my site was back in. Lesson learnt. To make sure I'm not so vulnerable again, I'm splitting my content to different sites, on the principle of 'best not to have all your eggs in one basket'.

Have I learnt anything from this? Yes. Have more than one site as your 'money-maker'. Spend less time on search engine optimisation and more on traditional marketing. Come up with a unique selling proposition that compels people to link to your site. Easy(!)

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Backup and Save your business!

There you are busily typing away on your PC or your
Laptop, and all of a sudden the strangest thing happens.
The screen goes black, extinquished like a candle in the
wind.

A message appears saying: "The file hal.dll is missing or
corrupt. Windows can not start." Well you know that 95% of
computer glitches are solved by a simple reboot, so
click…oops, can't click, no Windows. Ok then, you reset,
and you think you are sure to be OK when the reboot
completes.

Wrong! The same error message appears "The file hal.dll is
missing or corrupt. Windows can not start." How is it
possible for one measly file to kill your system?

DISASTER…What to do now? Phone your tech friend and ask
his advice. He tells you the bad news. You are obliged to
re-install Windows from the original disc! Oh My God! Will
I lose all my programs and data? Yes, you will have to re-
install all your programs. No your data may be safe, but
only if you don't have to reformat your hard disc.

But, your friend asks, I hope you have all your backups.

DO YOU, because that is the key to saving your business.
You know that in today's business world, 95% of your
business information is stored on your computer. This
applies not only to online businesses, but also to offline
ones. In this paperless society of ours, business people
are printing less and less of all their transactions.

Think hard. Where the heck did I hide my original Windows
disc? Really, are you organized enough that you can easily
find your original installation discs, along with the code
numbers they need to re-install.

You own some programs you downloaded off the Net, but they
are stored on your hard drive. Are they backed up? When is
the last time you backed up your data, the lifeblood of
your business.

What backup system do you use? Do you use the old-
fashioned tape systems, or do you backup to CD or DVD?
Whichever one you use, the key is that your backups must be
frequent enough to keep you out of major trouble.

Program backups do not have to be constantly repeated like
Data does. Programs do not change, unless you downloaded an
update. Then your update must be saved on your hard drive,
and also backed up.

Data includes so many different things that it's easy to
forget to back up some items. 'My Documents' contains much
of the data, but not nearly all. Do you know where your
Favorite links are stored? Where is your email that you
saved? Along with your email address book, Microsoft hides
these files quite well.

It took me weeks to find, and then remember where they are
hidden in Documents and Settings. I never did find the
email settings, so have not saved those.

Bottom line: what should you back up, and how often?

Whatever media you use, you must have at least 2 current
backups of everything, and preferably 3. If you use CD or
DVD, have you ever noticed how some discs suddenly become
unreadable, and for no apparent reason. It happens oh too
frequently.. I lose up to 15% this way. CDs have an
expected shelf life of maybe 2 years. Some will surely last
longer, too many die prematurely.

Does that mean you should not use CDs or DVDs to back up?
Of course you should. It is the cheapest backup system I know about. But you MUST have more than one copy. I prefer 3.
The proof of this comes when you save your business by
being able to start over because your backups are up to
date.

Imagine if you lose all your programs and have to buy them
over again.

Imagine if you lose all your emails that have your
registration codes for the programs you bought online. And
what about all the sales and purchase data in your emails.
What about your contact list, your email lists, etc.

Imagine losing all your accounting data that you must have
for year-end tax reporting!

Enough said. Programs already backed up on 2 or 3 copies only need to be updated by adding new programs you buy, and upgrades that come out.

Data should be backed up based on the frequency of your
transactions. It could be daily, or every 2 or 3 days if
your business is in the early growth stage..

Without backups…your business may be dead in the water!
Don't get careless. You may say I will save a disc or two
by backing up less often. Why? One CD-rom disc costs a
buck. Big deal when it means life or death for your
business.

Why take chances. Can anyone predict when you will have a
problem, a computer crash, a new virus? Of course not.
Don't live dangerously, this is not a thrill ride, it is
your life.

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Baby Boomers, Do You Blog? Learn What Your Grandchildren Already Know.

Baby Boomers: Blog for your grandchildren.

It is a fact that baby boomers have grandchildren. Some of you may have lots of grandchildren. Now is the time to keep connected. A blog is an easy, low-tech way to stay in touch.

I am not going to define blogs, or give you a long history on blogging. It is a technology that has been available for years, but now it's the hip thing to do.

If you have ever thought of having a travel journal or cooking lessons for your family, this is the way to go.

Doesn't it seem that the grandkids are far more advanced in technology? They have a language of their own, and they rarely share. Often, you will find kids on a computer, cell phone or mp3 player. Catching their attention is difficult and you want to be able to communicate with them.

What can we do to keep up? If you use email to replace snail mail then you are on the right track. Have you heard of blogging?? Don't be afraid, it is easy to start one.

What would be some reasons to get a blog?

The whole family can visit a blog, anytime. The pages never go away, so information is not lost. Blogs are interactive. When you post to your blog, others can comment about that post. Blogs allow photos. Say you want to write about--your tomato plants. You can talk about how they have grown, how many tomatoes you have this year and then snap a photo with your digital camera.
Blogs have voice recording. You can set up your blog to have little conversations recorded. What would it be like to read a book into the phone, and that recording would be posted for all the grandchildren.

You can't do all that easily with email. It may sound too technical, but baby boomers will find it's as easy as setting up a new email account.

Google has it all. You've heard of Google, it's a household verb now. We don't do a search on line anymore, we Google it.

Google has a service called Blogger. This page has all the information to get you started. http://www.blogger.com/start

Oh, and the best part… It's all free!!

You could be the coolest Grandparents on the block.

Take the plunge boomers; it's easy and painless.

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Avoid, Shun, Thwart, Prevent, and then Filter Spam

Email is rapidly becoming the standard means of communication among businesses, associates, and even friends. While many people have now been using the internet and email for years, there are thousands of new users on the internet each day. With inexpensive web hosting, free email services, and the blog burst upon us, getting your own slice of the internet pie has never been easier.

Whether you’re a seasoned professional looking for a refresher course, or you’re new to the internet and email and want to start off right, here are some easy steps to follow to reduce the amount of spam you receive.

Don’t choose an obvious email address. Spammers will generate lists of email addresses based on common names. A common list would be something like: nick@yahoo.com, nick1@yahoo.com, nick2@yahoo.com, etc. If you create an email account with less obvious combinations of your name plus some numbers, chances are better that you won’t find your way onto one of these lists.

Treat your personal email address with care. Only give out your personal email address to close friends and family who you trust. Give your direct business email only to clients and other contacts you trust to only use your address for legitimate business purposes.

Use different accounts for different functions. Create different aliases with your business’s domain name or create a few free accounts from free email servers like Hotmail, Yahoo!, Excite, etc. Use one account that you don’t care about for posting to forums or discussion groups. Use another to subscribe to newsletters and newsgroups. When any of these addresses starts to get spammed too heavily, simply delete the account and switch to a different one.

Remove your email address from your website. Between blogs and cheap web space, it seems everyone has their own piece of cyberspace. Before you put a link to your email address on your site, remember that spammers have bots that harvest these addresses. They will even find addresses printed in plain text. Consider using a web-based form for communication from you website, or place your address as a gif or jpeg.

Do not open, respond to, or purchase from spam. Interacting with spam in any of these ways indicates to the spammer that not only is your address valid, it’s also active. Do not respond with “unsubscribe” in the subject line, or click on any links to remove your name out of the database, as both of these are common ploys to confirm your email address. Remember, because sending email is so inexpensive, spamming can be profitable even if only a small percentage of people purchase what they’re selling. Don’t support what you’re trying to stop.

Finally, Filter you incoming email using filtering software. Even if you guard your email address religiously, you’ll likely still receive spam. Filtering software is usually inexpensive and effective, but there are some important features to consider with any filtering package:

• Make sure you can control what comes to your inbox and what gets deleted. The best programs create a spam folder for you to review before permanently deleting emails.

• The software should block images from incoming emails. Many jpegs in spam actually hide code that notifies the spammer when the email is viewed. Blocking images will not only keep offensive content off your screen but will also help prevent more spam in the future.

• Choose software that provides you with updates - as new spamming techniques are created and proliferated, filtering software should keep up.

While eliminating spam from coming to your email address is nigh unto impossible, following these simple steps will mean you’ll have to spend less time deleting spam from your inbox, giving you more time for the important things of life – like reading this article.

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Are You Prepared For A Hard Drive Crash?

Its just a matter of time before you experience a hard drive problem. Are you prepared to loose your data? If your hard drive crashed right now do you have an action plan to follow?

Most people only think of backing up their data after they experience a problem. Don't set yourself up for a data loss disaster.

Your data integrity action plan should consist of the following:

1) How often you will back up your data

2) What data you will back up

3) What back up procedure you will use

How often you back up your data can only be determined by how important you feel it is. Answer this question "If my hard drive crashed right now, I would be alright if I had the data from at least (time) ago".

Of course you would want everything but if you could have the data from 1 month, or 6 months ago would that be sufficient? Whatever time is sufficient mark it on your calendar both a hard copy and set up a meeting on your PC to remind you.

You change your smoke detector batteries when you turn your clock back and when you turn it ahead right? Well back up your data then too.

If you don't change your clocks then pick some holidays or special dates that happen close to the timeframe you want to back up your data so you won't forget.

What data you back up depends on how you use your PC. Some of the key directories, if you are using Windows, are the My Documents, Favorites and Desktop directories.

Remember if you are using multiple profiles on your PC then the three directories above can be different for each profile and each one would need to be backed up.

You will also want to include your email data. Don't forget to write down the email accounts you have. You should also write down any username and passwords so they are not lost. You should look at every directory to see if it has information that you would need.

Make a list of all the software programs you are using. If you have the physical CDs put them all together in a safe location.

Don't forget the CDs for your peripherals like your scanner, digital camera, PDA etc… Collecting these CDs may remind you of additional data that you need to back up.

If you are running software that you installed from downloaded files, burn them to a CD-R and add it to your collection. If you use a CD-R or DVD-R you can update it as you download and install new applications.

What procedure you use to back up your data can be determined by the amount of data you want to back up. Your data might fit onto a CD or DVD in which case you just need to burn it and you're done.

If it spans multiple DVDs then you might want to consider getting a second hard drive to copy your data onto. If you are not comfortable with adding a second internal hard drive or you are using a laptop then you can purchase an external hard drive to back up your data.

The information you have on your hard drive could disappear in a flash. If you don't want to spend up to $3,000 to have a data recovery company retrieve what information they can from your hard drive, then take a few minutes right now and create your back up action plan.

If you ever have a data emergency your action plan will be your insurance policy. If you adhere to it, your valuable data will adhere to you!

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Are There Any Ebay “Secrets” That Are Worth Buying?

If you look around a little on the web, you’ll no doubt come across people trying to sell you ebooks about eBay’s ‘secrets’ for as much as $20. Here’s a sample:

“Along with 400,000 other excited eBay fanatics I now make a living using the Internet and eBay. I can go days without ever speaking to a single customer, but I have a world wide customer base. My online business runs like a well oiled machine with a part-time effort!”

You too can get such valuable tips as:

“All you need to do is write a list of questions other people would pay to get the answers to, give that list to a friend, have the friend call you on the phone and ask you those questions, record the call, have the recording transcribed, and edit the transcription! Presto - you've just created a ‘meaty’ ebook fast!”

So What Do These Books Contain?

Don’t be deceived by the slick sales copy and promises of ‘automatic sales machines’ and unique sales strategies. Most of these ‘winning money-making strategies’ boil down to the same thing. Follow their advice, and you’ll be writing long, old-fashioned sales copy in an effort to sell shoddily-written downloadable ebooks to gullible souls, either directly through eBay or by trying to redirect people through your About Me page to your website.

The theory is that the rubbish ebooks will sell themselves, and you won’t have to do a thing.

Here’s a question to ask yourself: if these ‘secrets’ work so well, then why aren’t the ebooks authors spending every hour they have putting them into practice, instead of trying to sell you ebooks? If these secrets were so valuable, then why would they give them away for that price, or any price? Out of charity? Yeah, right.

Here’s the reality: trying to sell ebooks on eBay or anywhere else is very likely to get you nowhere, and fast. The bottom fell out of the ebook market a long time ago – in fact, it’s doubtful whether it ever had a bottom to begin with. The ebooks are an effort to get to you sign up for all sorts of services, making money for the ebooks’ writers each time. In short, the only way to profit from ‘secrets of eBay’ ebooks is to be selling them, not buying them – and do you really want to become a con artist?

If you’d like to take a look at one of these ebooks, try searching for the name and picking through results. The chances are you’ll find an excerpt or review – and if it’s not by someone trying to sell you the ebook then it won’t be a favourable view. The fact that most ebooks you buy for $20 come with unlimited resale rights should tip you off if nothing else does.

It’s All Out There for Free.

You can almost any information that someone might be trying to sell you in an ebook for free using a search engine, if you take the time. Ebooks aren’t worth the paper they’re not printed on.

If you’d like a real way to make more money, look out for our next email: we’ll show you how and when to use eBay’s powerful ‘Second Chance Offer’ feature.

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A Look at IT Help Desk Software

IT help desk software can be a valuable resource for technicians to manage and resolve troubleshooting tickets. Most companies realize the benefits of purchasing help desk software since it is a reliable way to manage customer inquiries and complaints. IT help desk software is preferred by both companies and clients over a traditional call center.

In traditional call centers, customers often complain of long hold times and unreturned voicemails. Other times, the less-than-technically-savvy customer may become frustrated in his or her attempt to explain the problem. Help desk software allows an IT department to effectively manage and direct certain issues to the appropriate personnel.

Many IT help desk software programs offer the convenience of a user-friendly menu and easy-to-manage files. Customers can choose from a variety of help topics and even copy and paste error messages to send to IT. For those customers who are not technically advanced, menus can be set up to offer a variety of common questions.

HelpDesks.com is an excellent resource for extensive IT help desk software reviews and information. This site allows you to compare the leading providers of the products to find the right program for your needs. Convenient charts allow you to see various amenities offered such as whether or not the program is web-based, costs associated with purchase and upgrades and the number of users allowed for each program.

One of the most popular IT help desk software programs, according to consumer reviews, is FootPrints. On a scale of one to ten, it has a rating of 9.2 and has multiple consumer reviews. This is a web-based program, and the initial cost is around $6,000. FootPrints offers unlimited user capabilities and free upgrades with their annual maintenance contract. This program is compatible with Linux, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Unix operating systems. It also offers searchable databases, assignment of reference numbers, F.A.Q databases, billing databases and much, much more.

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