Alert: Deals Extra (Enjoyment Fresh Pty Ltd) blog spamming to promote their site

Blog spamming is where others visit your site and add comments for the only purpose of adding a link to promote their own site. Today I had blog spam by Deals Extra to two of my blogs which contained the following comment.

“Your blogs and information attracts me to come back again n again.

cudo”

The link to their site removed.

If you have a blog you can often identify the blog spam because it is a generic comment and not specific to the post. Often it is a poorly worded compliment.

I recommend that business should not blog spam to promote their business on the internet. I’d also suggest that people do not use or support such businesses who use such practices and support businesses that use more acceptable businesses practices to promote their business.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au  

Alert: We Need Crusaders. How Fatima Started Islam. Amazon

I’ve received multiple emails promoting the book “How Fatima Started Islam”.  This is spam. Unfortunately Amazon doesn’t appear to care about spam. If an author is spamming to get sales then Amazon should take action. It is always possible it could be faked spam but more likely it is author initiated using an email marketing service. Often the author may not know the business they are using to market their book is using spammers to promote their book. I’ve seen this happen to Australian businesses where their web site developer uses low cost overseas countries to outsource promotional services.

Amazon should have a mechanism where spam can be reported. If they do have such a service I certainly couldn’t find it. There was information on spoofed email but nothing with product spam. Perhaps someone else knows how to report Amazon promotional spam.

This type of spam hurts all authors promoting their books on Amazon. Amazon may ignore the existence of such spam as a purchase is a purchase at the end of the day. But legitimate authors may suffer if spammers put people off using Amazon services. It certainly puts me off when they could so easily take action but don’t appear to be interested.

I’d highly encourage people to delete all spam emails promoting products and services from Amazon. If everyone deletes the emails the spam will stop. Given the volume of spam it only takes a few sales to make it worthwhile for spammers to continue.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 if you require computer support.

Assisting businesses and residents in Doncaster, Templestowe, Eltham and surrounding suburbs.

Alert: Woolworths Customer Satisfaction Survey, win $50

I just received a fake email with the subject “Customer Satisfaction Survey” pretending to be from Woolworths

The body of the text was the following which also included a link which appears to go to the Woolworths site but actually goes to a site registered in :

“You have been selected by Woolworths -- Supermarkets to access the Customer Satisfaction Survey and win $50.00 credit to your card. Please follow the link below and complete the form in order to receive your reward”

My concern is with the “Find Sandta” competition now running it is easy for people to think the competition and the $50 credit are related. I’ve found people being tricked in the past. For example one person just sent a parcel by UPS, when they returned to the office they had received an email from UPS. It was a coincidence and the fake email tricked him into infecting his computer. The person was an ex IT person so they were very aware and skilled in IT.

Treat all emails with suspicion and care. Your best defence against malware infection isn’t antivirus software (although that is recommended), it is you. Only you can stop the latest infections.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer support.
Assisting residents and businesses in Doncaster, Templestowe, Eltham and the surrounding area.

Internet Explorer 10 - The preferred Australian English spelling now available

I’m pretty excited to announce I’m now making available the preferred Australian English spelling file for Internet Explorer 10 running on Windows 8.

Internet Explorer 10 has Australian English spellchecking built in, but like Microsoft’s Office products, the spellchecker accepts thousands of secondary spelling variations such as words with “ize”, American spelt words such as “mom” and some errors. The preferred Australian English spelling file corrects these issues.

If written communication matters to you the preferred Australian English spelling file is a must have. If you’re a student, applying for jobs, or write reports or sales material, the preferred Australian English spelling file is a must have.

You can find the preferred Australian English spelling file for Internet Explorer 10 at www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
The creator of the preferred Australian English spelling dictionary.

Get $100* credit and expert help choosing keywords when you come back to AdWords

I received this email from Google offering a $100 credit to come back to AdWords. I decided to investigate. It was legitimate offer but there’s a catch. I have to spend $25 to redeem the $100. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it.

My past experience with spending a small amount of money, plus Google’s introductory offer of $75, is that I achieved no sales result. Google ended up with my money and because it is their own service, it ended up costing them nothing (I don’t advertise on third party sites so they don’t pay any third party commission). A win to Google and a loss for me.

If you’ve never tried advertising on Google and have the hours you need to invest in learning how Google Adwords works, then trying Google Adwords isn’t a bad thing. For me however I prefer to put my advertising dollar where I know I’ll get a return.

The JustLocal advertising service I run offers a money back guarantee. That beats Google’s offer.

I’d have no problems advertising on Google if it gave me a return, but so far there’s been no return and that experience has put me off.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
Helping local businesses with low cost local advertising.
Guaranteed to work or your money back.

Click Frenzy servers appear to not be handling the load.

Not really interested in purchasing but I was interested in seeing how the technology held up.




Not a good start. In Internet Explorer 10 you receive the message "This page can't be displayed".

Hopefully things will start working. Good on them for getting the retailers going and putting some spark back into the market.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 if you require help with your computer.
No problem too small.

UPDATE: Just after 8:30pm and I managed to display the following. At least in the virtual crush people aren't getting hurt, frustrated, but not hurt.

 



UPDATE: 10:30pm. Click Frenzy site still unstable but here is a technique which may help others. Some of the individual companies advertising have the same specials available on their site. Check the image of Click Frenzy for a logo or name and then search for the business. For example www.oo.com.au lists their Click Frenzy specials. Doing this you can bypass the Click Frenzy site and go direct to the participating site if they're advertising the same special. Be careful however as some sites aren't promoting the Click Frenzy specials.

Here is a list of sites which I'll keep checking and adding sites in case it helps others.

www.oo.com.au
www.supercycle.com.au
www.justfitness.com.au
www.biasboating.com.au (Hard to identify specials.)
www.completehealth.com.au (Scrolling message for code "FRENZY" for 15% off.)
http://dicksmith.com.au/clickfrenzy/t/
www.addictedtoaudio.com.au/Click-Frenzy
www.annexproducts.com/pages/clickfrenzy
www.wireless1.com.au

UPDATE: 11:30pm. The Click Frenzy site now appears to have stabilised. The normal nightly peak for internet use is around 11pm and since we are now after that time we should be able to expect the Click Frenzy servers (or cloud services) should handle the load. Although tomorrow as they say, is another day.

Government spends many millions advertising on Google and then complains when Google only pays $74,176 in tax.

I read articles over time where Australian politicians complain that large multinational companies use tax minimisation strategies to reduce their tax liability in Australia.

 

For example it is estimated that Google earns around $2 billion in revenue a year from Australian advertisers and yet only paid a little over $74,000 in tax.

Google Australia declared a loss of $3.9 million last year, and paid just $74,176 in Australian tax... Read More

The politicians have a very simple solution. Redirect the millions of dollars (and if that figure of $2 billion a year is correct we could be talking about hundreds of millions spent by government and government agencies) to local businesses.

When Google wants to promote itself you can see their advertisements around everywhere and they’re not generally using the Google service. Letter drops I receive regularly in the post. Signs at Southern Cross station. A $300 million dollar deal (reportedly) with Mozilla (Firefox) to send 15-25% of internet search traffic Google’s way. If Google are using other advertising media to get their message across isn’t that perhaps what the government should also be using.

The best thing with not using Google is the government avoids click fraud which is estimated to a be a multi-billion dollar problem for Google. Click fraud is when people or organisations have a site and generate income from either their own activity of the activity of others such as clicking on ads on their site and not clicks by potential customers. I’ve been told of ordinary people doing this type of activity so you can only imagine how much activity is occurring due to organised crime.

If the government isn’t happy the solution is easy. Don’t advertise on Google. Google will quickly come around and pay a fair and reasonable amount of tax if that happens, and if they don’t, the government is putting their advertising dollar in to assist the local economy by supporting local advertising services. To me that’s a win either way.

My own tests of paid Google advertising is it didn’t yield any result. Those I’ve spoken to, with the exception one person, have had a similar experience. That person when I last heard, had suspended their Google advertising.

- Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for help with your computer problem.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

New site for The Preferred Australian English spellcheck dictionary

Recently Google changed their algorithm which significantly impacted the position of the Australian English spellcheck dictionary in the Google search results. From number one position to nowhere to be found. In essence traffic to the site dropped 80% overnight. This should be a warning for anyone who puts a lot of time and money into obtaining a position in Google. All your time, energy and money could be wasted overnight by decisions Google makes in terms of generating traffic to your site.

The preferred Australian English spellcheck dictionary is the only free service available to Australians to assist them with using the preferred Australian English spelling. Over a thousand people a week used the site and Google simply changed their algorithm making the page almost impossible to find. The original page will remain (www.justlocal.com.au/clients/oooau), but in addition, you can now find the main page at www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au.

 

The site www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au will become the main site for my dictionary work.

 

You can still find the main page if searching (“Australian Dictionary”) using Bing, where the site is positioned in first position and in Yahoo where the site is positioned second. My apologies for any inconvenience. What Google does is outside of my control.

I hope you find my work to be of assistance.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au   

MyAnswers: Free eBooks for Android, PC and Apple iOS users.

The following MyAnswers solution 2282 is now available:

Free eBooks for Android, PC and Apple users. Recently I helped a couple of customers who had purchased low cost Android tablets from Aldi. The surprise was that in order to get free eBooks from the Android Playstore, they needed to supply a credit card and they weren't happy to do that. This solution shows you how to obtain tens of thousands of free eBooks for Android tablets (and other devices) without providing your credit card details.

Click here to obtain the solution.

Click here for related solutions.

Kelvin Eldridge
MyAnswers
(An Online Connections service.)

Skype free unlimited worldwide telephone calls for a month.

Just read on the internet about Skype’s offer of free unlimited calls for a month. This offer can only be redeemed on the 15^th of November 2012. It is now after 9am on the 16^th in Melbourne Australia so if this offer is valid and applies to Australia, then you need to act quickly.

Free worldwide calls for a month... Read More

You need to subscribe to the service for one month. I’ve found these offers often encourage people to sign up and then they forget so they keep getting charged. Make sure you record the date for the end of the trial or set a reminder in your calendar a day or two before the trial is up if you wish to cancel.

In my case I have $13.02 credit. Don’t know what will happen to this credit. Hopefully I won’t lose it, but since I want to test if this offer is legitimate and works in Australia I’ll take a hit for the team. The amount normally charged for the plan for a month is $13.49.

Enjoy,

- Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for help with your computer problem.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

UPDATE: Confirmation of free trial by Skype. This appears to be working. Now for a test call. Local call went through with no charge. Successful test. Note. The call quality was good but there was a delay at the start such that the person didn’t hear my introduction when I called them. I heard their response.

Alert: Telstra - You have received a new message

<<< photo missing >>>



I received three emails this morning to different email addresses all pretending to be from Telstra with the message:

"You have received a picture message from mobile number +61
To save this picture, please save attached file."

There is an attached zip file most likely some form of malware.

You should delete these emails.


Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 if you require help with your computer.
No problem too small.

Alert: Richard Person Doggonit Obedience blog spamming

Another blog spammer today. Doggonit Obedience blog spammed my blog with a comment today. I expect overseas countries to blog spam but it is disappointing when Australian businesses resort to posting links in other sites just to promote their own.

 

Richard Person please check who you are using for internet marketing and drop them. They are blog spamming others and that is damaging your reputation. I wouldn’t use a business that has no respect for others and I suggest others not to use such businesses.

 

There are more ethical ways to market your business. Please use them.

 

Kelvin Eldridge

www.JustLocal.com.au

Dog Training Melbourne - Herding Dog Training with dog trainer Charlie Brincat

With the beautiful weather over the weekend I couldn’t help feeling an unusual and fun activity many dogs and their owners may have missed on the weekend, was the opportunity to participate in herding dog training. Herding dog trainer Charlie Brincat runs classes on weekends subject to weather and you couldn’t have had nicer weather than this weekend.

Check out Herding Dog Training videos produced by Charlie on his site www.herdingdogtraining.com.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au  

Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro upgrade is not a straight forward upgrade for all Windows 7 editions.

I decided to buy the Windows 8 Pro upgrade from the Microsoft Online Store this morning. I have an older development machine I’d like to install Windows 8 Pro on. The machine is currently running the trial version of Windows 8 Enterprise Edition which expires after three months. I opened my notebook and went to download. From the first screens presented on the Microsoft Online Store I couldn’t just buy and download Windows 8 Pro and then burn it to a disk. The screens take me through the steps of checking my machine and at this point I decided I’d rather go to Officeworks and buy Windows 8 Pro on special for around $9 more. I’m hoping the special also includes the DVD so I don’t have to spend the time downloading and burning a DVD.

The problem I find with downloading programs is things can and do go wrong. When I support people I take into account people have a range of skills. If things go wrong for me, then they’ll go wrong for others and really, I want people to have the best experience they can, given what technology often puts us through. On a number of occasions when I’ve assisted people who have downloaded their software, they don’t have a copy of their software to reinstall when there is a major problem. This means to fix the problem they have had to buy the software again. In other situations people have lost their product key, or the product key is in their emails on their computer which is no longer working. People should have a copy of their software and their product key stored separately to minimise the chance of having to incur additional costs and delays.

One big surprise for me was the following statement on the Microsoft Online Store.

“If your PC is running Windows 7 Home Basic or Home Premium, your files, programs and settings will easily transfer to Windows 8. If your PC is running Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, Windows XP or Windows Vista, you will need to reinstall your programs. Some features such as touch may require a new PC. To check compatibility, visit your PC manufacturer’s website and check out www.windows.com/upgrade to run the Upgrade Assistant to check for compatibility and get more details on system requirements.”

To me an upgrade is you insert the disk, run the program, the upgrade occurs and you continue working. This is generally relatively easy for anyone who is comfortable working with technology. Having to reinstall all your programs is much more time consuming. You never know if you’ve got all the disks, the licence numbers and even if some of the programs such as drivers will even work. Reinstalling your software can often wipe existing data for some applications and that is pretty scary if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve often reinstalled Windows and then spent hours downloading and updating drivers for sound cards, video cards and other devices in the computer. An upgrade to a new version of Windows can mean some of your peripheral devices don’t work and may never be able to be used again with your upgraded computer.

What surprised me and I didn’t know, even though I’ve spent numerous hours researching, installed Windows 8 Release Preview, installed Windows 8 Enterprise Edition, and attended a Microsoft day-long seminar, that the upgrade will only work easily with Windows 7 Home Basic or Home Premium. I mostly now support micro and small business clients (as well as home users) and for business I’d always recommend the Pro version of Windows. People buying Home editions would often bring a computer into a large business or government environment wanting to use their computer for work, but couldn’t because it couldn’t connect to their network at work. There were also other features missing in the Home edition. Thus it was safer to purchase the Pro edition of Windows.

Now every one of those computer running the pro edition of Windows 7, will now effectively have to do what is nearly a complete reinstall of their computer. That is a very costly exercise if you are using an IT consultant to upgrade your computers. I wouldn’t upgrade a machine without first doing a review of the machine, determining what programs and data the user has on their machine, performing a backup of their hard disk, and then installing the new operating system, reinstalling all their applications, bringing across their data and then fixing any issues that have been created, such as drivers for hardware or peripherals not working. This could easily be a $300-$500 (or more) cost per machine. I personally find it hard to justify putting that amount of money into an older machine.

Windows 8 is not a simple upgrade anymore and it is now an upgrade you need to think seriously about. If you have to pay $300-$500 to upgrade an older machine, that sum of money could easily go a long way towards the cost of purchasing a new machine. With a new machine at least you know the machine has been designed to run the new operating system. You don’t have to try to fix things that didn’t work in the upgrade. Because your data is still on your old machine you can take your time to migrate your data and applications. I often leave the old decommissioned machine with the client for two weeks just in case something they hadn’t realised the was something on their old machine they needed to be migrated and now doesn’t work on their new machine. Then after that period the old machine can be cleaned and reused in another part of the business.

As an extra tip I don’t generally buy the Office software licence with the machine as that software can only be used with that machine. I purchase the more expensive stand-alone version of the Office. That enables me to use the software on two machines (a desktop and a notebook) and to transfer the software to a new machine. (I’ll need to recheck the licence to see if this still applies.) I’ve had clients who have had their computers stolen. The insurance companies won’t pay for the software and the software is only licensed for the machine that was stolen. The client can’t use the software on the new replacement machine and are thus out of pocket hundreds of dollars. I’ve also confirmed this with Microsoft.

Until today I didn’t realise that only the Home editions of Windows 7 will be a relatively straight forward upgrade exercise. That means for me, the majority of machines could potentially be equivalent to a reinstall and that is a much more time consuming and thus expensive exercise. Many of those who purchased a machine recently running Windows 7 with a $14.99 upgrade to Windows 8, will probably now be regretting they didn’t just wait and buy a new computer and save themselves the time and energy required to upgrade. I’ve recommended that my clients defer purchasing machines until after Windows 8 ships. Retailers who just wanted the sale would have been pushing out machines and not advising clients of the time and effort to upgrade. Consultants who have advised clients to purchase a Windows 7 machine and then to later update may get some agro from their clients. Some consultants would have done this knowingly to obtain additional support work and others would not have known the upgrade wouldn’t be a simple upgrade.

I’m posting this article to all my blogs including my Online Connections blog (www.blog.onlineconnections.com.au) and also each of the JustLocal postcode blogs I maintain, to ensure people I support now know if they are thinking of upgrading to Windows 8, there is more work involved than previously anticipated.

If you’d like to be kept informed with technology related news, most news is posted to my Online Connections blog (www.blog.onlineconnections.com.au). For clients I also provide the MyAnswers solution database where I post problems and solutions I find when working with clients. This enables me to share solutions between clients reducing the costs overall for all clients. You can keep updated on new solutions on MyAnswers by looking at the Recent solutions posted. I expect to post quite a number of issues and solutions relating to Windows 8.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer advice and support.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham, Templestowe Lower, Lower Plenty, Doncaster East, Montmorency, Bulleen, Warrandyte and Research with no travel or call-out fee. For suburbs outside this area travel time is chargeable.
 

Windows 8 release date in Australia is today. Windows 8 Pro upgrade available now.

Windows 8 Pro upgrade is now available for download from Microsoft’s Online Store for $39.99. There are a number of things you should keep in mind.

1. Whilst at $39.99 the Windows 8 Pro upgrade is a bargain compared to previous upgrades, if you have an ageing computer think about whether it is best to save the money and put it towards a new computer, or to install Windows 8 Pro to keep your existing computer going and use the latest version of Windows.

2. Keep in mind Windows 8 is very different from what you are used to. At first this will be frustrating for most, but as with all past changes, once you get used to it, it won’t really matter.

3. Around 10% of older computers I’d estimate won’t be able to be upgraded. I estimate there will be over 100 million computers currently being used worldwide which won’t handle the upgrade. Check Microsoft’s refund policy, or the policy of the store where you purchase the software. The system requirements stated on the Microsoft web site do not take into account many computers which exceed the minimum requirement cannot install the Windows 8 upgrade. This is based on testing the Windows 8 Preview Release and I don’t believe this has changed.

The Microsoft Online Store provides a link to the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant which you can use to test if your computer can install Windows 8. I’d recommend running the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant before purchasing the Window 8 Pro upgrade. On the netbook computer I use (it is around three years old) 11 issues were found and one was quite serious.

4. Keep in mind only upgrading from Windows 7 is what we’d normally consider a real upgrade. Windows Vista and Windows 8 will require reinstallation of your applications and isn’t an upgrade to me. My concern here is people running the upgrade on a Vistra or Windows XP machine will end up with a machine where there programs won’t run if they don’t understand how the upgrade works. I’d suggest Windows XP and Windows Vista users consider the upgrade to be like a fresh install. If you had to do a new install of your computer what do you need to save first.

5. You should perform a backup of your data (including programs you may have download and any settings your programs may store) before you perform any upgrade to your computer.  

I’m suggesting to my clients they should purchase the upgrade to Windows 8 Pro even if they don’t install the upgrade right now. Until January 31^st 2013 you’ll be able to buy Windows 8 Pro via download for $39.99. After that date the price will most likely revert to the very expensive upgrade prices of past, which means it may no longer be worth upgrading an older machine. This of course may change and Microsoft may decide to keep the upgrade prices at a reasonable level, but I wouldn’t count on it. Based on what I’ve read the upgrade to Windows 8 Pro on DVD could cost as much as $290. To me it doesn’t make sense to pay that much money to upgrade an older machine when that money could go to a new and faster machine.

You can buy Windows 8 Pro upgrade from a retailer, or save some money and download the upgrade from the Microsoft Online Store. The upgrade from a retailer will cost around $20-$30 more. I’m not sure at the moment, but I suspect the retail version may include a DVD. You should check if the DVD is included in the purchase from a retailer.

As I find issues with Windows 8 I’ll add the issues and solutions to MyAnswers for clients. I’ve already identified and documented a shortcoming of Windows 8 Mail which largely stops me from using Windows 8 Mail and may stop others.

Most importantly, do run the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant first to make sure upgrading your computer won’t cause you any grief. Well, no more grief than normal.

If you forget where you can download the Windows 8 upgrade, the Microsoft Online Store is available on the main page of JustLocal (www.JustLocal.com.au). JustLocal is an advertising service I’ve created to help local businesses advertise cost effectively.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer support.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

NOTE: The link to the Microsoft store above is an affiliate link. Purchasing using this link means I receive a commission but does not affect the price you pay.

Eastern freeway at at crawl from Chandler Highway to Hoddle Street

Getting a lift into the city this morning via the Eastern freeway. The T2 lane is travelling well but all the other lanes are a crawl and often stopping.

I'm told this isn't unusual. How people put up with the daily grind of this trip is beyond me.

By focusing on working locally I'm now lucky enough to avoid such a frustrating trip. With the occasional job or seminar in the city I can usually avoid the congestion.

Think local for work, but if you can't, perhaps find company and use the T2.

If you need help building up your local business consider JustLocal and help yourself and help build a stronger local community.


Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 if you require help with your computer.
No problem too small.

PS. On the freeway two cars were in the emergency lane with the bus attempting to move into the traffic. On Hoddle Street near the freeway exit, police, fire brigade and ambulance were at the scene of an accident. A motor bike was pinned under a four wheel drive. Hoddle is light after the accident.

Compulsory voting for council elections but...

When I attended the session for independents at the last state election, one statement that quite surprised me was that voting was compulsory for those over seventy, but the person said they wouldn't enforce it.

Now I see the following for the council election.

<<< photo missing >>>

To me this just seems absurd. Surely they should just make voting optional for over 70's.

I assisted one elderly person who was hysterical thinking they'd have the wrath of the government on them if they didn't vote and had no clue what the information in the postal vote meant. If you've tried to read and understand what the government sends out for the state election, you'll find it quite verbose and difficult to understand.

At a time when we should make it easier for the elderly, or in fact all people, the government makes it harder in their own interests.

First Julia Gillard redefines the meaning of misogyny and now compulsory doesn't mean compulsory.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 if you require help with your computer.
No problem too small.

Big Switch Projects run by Gavin Gilchrist blog spamming.

Tonight I received a comment on my blog on the article “One Big Switch on The Project” (http://justlocal.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/one-big-switch-on-project.html). The following is the comment. I’ve changed the link at the end so it now fails.

“I recall correctly on The Project they said there was a three year contract. I for one wouldn’t want to be locked into such a long term contract. beec”

What I thought was interesting is the person who created the comment had taken a section of the blog I’d written and made it very relevant to the blog. I check each comment because 95% plus of comments are blog spam and it is usually easy to tell from what has been written, or there is a link to promote another site in the comment. In this case because it reflected what had been said in the blog post it could have easily tricked me to release the comment. The link however made it look suspect. This is one of the techniques businesses are using other people’s blogs to promote themselves.

When I checked my logs this comment was entered by someone in Pakistan. The link however is for an Australian site so the spam has been outsourced. Here is a copy of part of the log.

Host: 59.103.212.199

		/images/XXXX (removed) Http Code: 200 Date: Oct 20 04:48:18 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 28944 Referer: http://justlocal.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-big-switch-on-project.html Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0.1

NOTE: The time is based on the hosting provider which is in the Houston Texas. The comment was received at 8:52pm Melbourne local time which is four minutes after the site was visited confirming this is the relevant log entry.

My guess is Gavin Gilchrist at Big Switch Projects has probably had his web developer to do some Search Engine Optimisation. I recently had a mobile vet in Melbourne do the same thing. When I contacted the vet they didn’t have a clue their web developer was using blog spamming to promote the vets  business.

Be careful of the companies you use to promote your business. If they aren’t behaving ethically this will reflect on your business. Blog spamming is still spam. Using other people’s sites and resources and thus creating work for them to remove the spam is not appropriate. If you read this Gavin please stop blog spamming.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Google search Australia and Google advertising has now been removed from JustLocal.

Recently Google updated their search algorithm which resulted in my dictionary page going from the number one position in Google when people search for “Australian dictionary” to nowhere to be seen. That means around a thousand people each week using my free Australian English dictionary service will no longer find a free Australian English dictionary service. If Google can do that to me so easily, they can do it to any business.

I’ve also noticed that between 25% and up to possibly 40% of searches coming to my site have no search term, which means people are logged onto a Google service and whatever they search for is being tracked to them individually.

These actions concern me. I don’t want to encourage people to put time and effort into creating a presence in Google search results when any time, effort, or money they outlay, could easily end up being wiped away so easily. I’m also very concerned about the privacy of Australians. Over 90% of Australians use Google for searching with 25-40% of those having their search activity tracked to them individually. I’ve read this information can be handed to law enforcement agencies without a court order. How this information is being used by others is not known to us and for me that is a concern.

Whilst I can’t stop using all Google services, I’ve decided at this point to remove Google advertising from my site and the Google custom search engine.

JustLocal has been designed to provide single click access to businesses in an area. Something which is very difficult and time consuming with a search engine. For example, a very popular fish and chip shop called Shark Tank Seafood opened a few months ago in Templestowe. My blog entries appear in Google’s search results, but the page with the menu at http://www.justlocal.com.au/clients/shark-tank-seafood-templestowe/ cannot be found. If you visit www.JustLocal.com.au/3106 (the page for Templestowe), you can access the Shark Tank Seafood menu with a single click.

JustLocal offers single click access to local businesses. Google offers endless searches with no guarantee of finding what you want.

By continuing to include Google’s custom search in JustLocal, people will continue to unproductively search for local businesses often being presented with large overseas businesses, or business not in the area with deep pockets to advertise. Once people realise there is a better way to find a local business using JustLocal, JustLocal will grow to service locals better. Shark Tank Seafood receives over a hundred views of their menu a month as a result of JustLocal’s efforts to promote them. That’s a lot of potential business.

 

Thank you for your continued support and I trust JustLocal assists local businesses and residents.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
Help to build a stronger local community through stronger local businesses.

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Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
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