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Archive for June, 2010

Google Snoops Unsecured Networks

Monday, June 21st, 2010

It was recently discovered that Google had been collecting data transmitted over unsecured wireless networks points through packet captures and then stored the data.  Google’s Streetview cars have been driving around all over the country – and the w0rld – compiling a list of unencrypted hot-spots so they could then filter the information and post the hot-spots to their maps.  I can understand the motivation of adding Wi-Fi hotspots to their maps, and I can also understand the implications.  Just imagine all the businesses without “IT guys” who have unencrypted wireless access points that would show up in the results.  What a gold-mind of data for identity thieves.  Anyway, Google was building this list but was also going around doing packet captures on the wireless network and storing that data.  That means that they were intercepting the traffic of the networks including logins, passwords, bank info, etc. and as part of the lawsuit against them, they are being forced to turn over all the data they collected.  I hope you don’t use unencrypted networks because if you do and Google drove by, chances are that they grabbed that hot email you wrote your wife and will be providing that to the courts where it might just become public record.

During all this controversy Google applied for a patent the technology used to snoop out those unencrypted networks.  I don’t think they are sorry.  Turns out that Google is getting into the WarDriving business.

Posted in Google | No Comments »

Getty Images Looking for a Payday

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Attention Webmasters:  If you have used Getty Images for stock photography, you may soon get a letter from them demanding payment for unlicensed use of their images.  Their records aren’t all that good and they seem to be on a fishing campaign to see how many people will be scared into paying their $1,000.00 fine.  Your only recourse; find your receipt or pay!

I’m no advocate for unlicensed use of images, let’s get that clear. I do have a big problem with the way Getty is handling this.  Getty’s behavior in this case is unethical at best. To them it seems the ends justify the means, just like those who steal from them.  They are relying on their image discovery bot called PicScout to find their images on the web and then cross-reference that with their records of purchase.  If they find no match, they are sending the registrar of the domain a letter demanding $1,000.00.  Where does that leave the small business that had their site coded by a third party?  Responsible for the fine.  If you can’t produce your proof of purchase, you have to pay or risk a lawsuit which could result in owing Getty “damages” of up to $150,000 per image!

On top of the unethical mass-mailing, Getty is using their PicScout unethically.  The PicScout bot is disregarding robots.txt instructions, masking it’s identity, bypassing website security measures, and ignoring terms-of-service.  They are without-a-doubt unauthorized visitors to your website.  You can find more information about PicScout’s crawling behavior at IncrediBILL’s blog here.  It’s a little dated, but the overall message is relevant.

What can you do about this?  I recommend blocking the PicScout robot from your site – if you can find it.  If you have the ability to edit your .htaccess file you can follow the tips here: .htaccess bot trap.  Adding that line of code will block robots that don’t obey the robots.txt file.  Since PicScout doesn’t adhere to your rules, they will get blocked.  Careful though – if you mess up your .htaccess file, you can take down your whole site.  For now that’s the only solution I’m aware of.  I’m looking for something like this that would work with IIS and if I find one, I’ll post it here.

The second thing I recommend is to block the Internet Archiver from your website.  Even if you go through all the trouble and expense of repurchasing your images and blocking the PicScout bad robot, you can still get busted for what the Internet Archive shows on your site.  Blocking the IA robot will completely remove current and past versions of your site.  I have talked about the Internet Archiver before and the ramifications of allowing it to index your site.  Check out my post on blocking the internet archiver robot.

To sum up: Don’t steal, pay for your images.  Someone is trying to feed their family by shooting them and selling them on sites like Getty.  If you have a third-party company design and develop your site, make sure they provide you with receipts and licenses for every image they use.

Posted in Around the Interwebs | No Comments »

Google Analytics Asynchronous Tracking Code

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Late last year Google introduced a new asynchronous tracking code for their analytics platform.  The new code is a much-needed change to their system.  The old code on sites was located just before the close-body tag at the end of the HTML.  On big sites you would see the page load and then if you watched your browser’s status code you would see the page waiting for Google’s response to the tracking code.  The new code is placed just before the close-head tag so it is loaded first and Google responds while the page is being rendered effectively decreasing the overall page-load time since the tracking info is loaded out of sync.  Asynchronous means just that, the code can load OUT OF SYNC with it’s position in the HTML so nothing that follows it has to wait for it’s completion.  The new code is available through your existing analytics account and I recommend that you replace the old tracking code with the new one.

I have a client that needs to run analytics using two accounts on the same website.  There are many reasons for this kind of implementation, but the most common reason is to setup tracking for multiple third-party marketing firms so each can define their own filters, conversion goals, user funnels, etc.  Unfortunately, the implementation of the additional account ID on my client’s site was not correct and it “broke” analytics for the other account.  One account had good data, the other account couldn’t keep track of the users.  This is because the way the code was written, one tracking cookie was being overwritten by the other, and the one associated with the account being overwritten was reading 99% bounce rate, 0.00 time on page, and could not follow users into the site.

Since some of the posts discussing this topic online are a bit technical, I thought I would post an easy-to-understand version here.  I’ve placed the correct code below with examples of how you add additional account ids to a website without breaking the analytics.

Using Multiple Accounts With Asynchronous Tracking

Using Multiple Accounts With Asynchronous Tracking

You can see in the image that I’ve input multiple account ids. (UA-XXXXXXXX-X)  Each new id starts with a new letter (b._, c._) and you can continue this for as many analytics accounts that you want to hook up to your site.  Remember, the more accounts you connect, the slower the pages will load so I suggest keeping the number of accounts to a minimum.

Posted in Analytics, Google | No Comments »

Google Chrome OS

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Along with trying to get into your living room with Google TV, Google is trying to get into your netbook with Google Chrome OS.  Netbook sales are booming and netbooks honestly could use a lighter operating system.  Their smaller processors, hard drives, and RAM capacities make it tough for a full-featured operating system to work without bogging down the system.  I will admit there’s a niche there.  The hitch I see is the fact that the “OS” isn’t much more than a web-browser.  From Reuters:

“The Chrome operating system will be centred around the web browser, with all software including high-end applications such as those used in photo and video editing housed in external servers known as a cloud.”

So what exactly will your computer be doing?  Accessing everything “out-there” putting all of your files in someone else’s hands.  You will also need to run apps, like on android phones, to access services.  The real challenge to this kind of model is the fact that a Google OS based computer will be a fancy paper-weight when there’s no internet access.  I keep going back to the rumors I’ve been hearing for years about Google getting into the wireless business.  It would be nice for them to have a strong mobile phone platform, a mobile computing platform, and then jump into offering cut-throat rates on wireless broadband / wireless phone service.  Big brother keeps getting bigger…

Posted in Google | No Comments »

Mayday! Mayday!

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Now the little guys have a chance in Google too. Let me explain why.

Up until the recent algorithmic change, SEOs have been complaining about the power of big brands. Big brands dominated the search index because of the power of their domains. (reputation, links, trust, etc) It was as if they could post anything they want and almost instantly rank #1 for that term. Google was paying attention.

The algorithm change that was launched in May has been dubbed the “Mayday” update because many folks are convinced that it’s a mistake and that Google will roll it back. I doubt it. I think they are right on the money with this one. Instead of relying on powerful domains and solid internal linking structures for ranking pages, the individual pages are now standing on their own. It makes sense – just because you’re a big brand doesn’t mean that you have a document that’s more important than another sites’ document. For example: A document on a less important site (compared to a big brand) may be more useful to a searcher (and have the same number of links) compared to a page with less useful information ranked solely upon the power of a big brand root URL. Now it seems that those two documents are being compared as equally viable competitors instead of one document being from Beverly Hills and one from Starkville Mississippi. (sorry Rob, best hillbilly town I could think of)

Some people are honestly freaking out about “massive losses of traffic” on their “authority sites.” Well, they’ve been turning out crap for content and getting it ranked based solely on the power of their domains. This change in Google might root out some in-house SEOs that over-sold their experience and qualifications and have been coasting by based on the power of their big brand. They’d better get with the program and get back to basics fast or they might find themselves on the street.

Has this affected me or my clients? You bet. We’re getting more traffic! Why? Because I believe in a solid SEO campaign based on what I call the Keyphrase Pyramid. My Pyramid starts with the very long-tail of search. We start building content and links for that long-tail and then as time goes on we keep building upon that wide, deep base with higher and higher value keywords until we reach the top one or two big performers. As the content and links grow and we capture more popular phrases, traffic expands exponentially. This little update has just compressed the timeline it takes to increase traffic. If you take the time to build a strong base of content and links, you won’t go wrong. If there’s anything that I’ve learned in my 13 years as an SEO it’s that content is king, links are queen, and slow-and-steady wins the race every time.

Posted in Google, SEO Tips & Tricks | No Comments »