CrankyDave

Merchants Protecting Consumers from Credit Card Fraud

In 2006 consumers used their credit or debit cards to spend approximately $160 billion at fast food restaurants alone. That’s a lot of transactions. Total online sales were projected to reach more than $250 Billion in 2007. Credit card fraud amounts to billions of dollars a year. But who is it that is really looking out for you? Who is it that is really being proactive about protecting consumers from fraudulent use of their credit cards before it happens? It’s not your bank.

Sure, you can contest a charge you didn’t make and there are laws in place to help protect you from being obligated to repay those charges. But that’s all after the fact. After your bank has already approved the transaction. If you think it’s your bank that pays for those charges you’d be wrong. It’s the merchants and ultimately you, the consumer, through higher prices, not your bank who issued the approval for the charge in the first place.

When you apply for a credit card, you provide the issuing bank with a wealth of information. Personal and private information that identifies you and ties you to your credit card. Information your bank has at its finger tips. When you make a purchase online, you provide merchants with personal and private information. The same information you provided your bank. How much of that information does your bank verify before they issue an approval for your online credit card purchase? Very little.

When you make a purchase online, your bank verifies the card number, expiration date, and security code. That’s it. That’s all they look at before issuing an approval for a purchase. That and your available credit. But what about your address or zip code, they have that on file, do they even transmit the information for the merchant? Nope, they don’t even consider it when issuing an approval. Why? Good question to ask your bank. Ask them why it is they don’t bother to verify information they have right at their finger tips before they issue an approval and feel free to post their answers here. They ought to be “interesting” to say the least.

So who is it that verifies this information after your bank has already approved the transaction? After the amount of your online purchase has already been held against your credit or debit account by your bank? It’s the merchant. Ever had an online purchase declined because an address or zip code didn’t match yet still see the amount being held against your credit or debit account? That’s because your bank approved the purchase but the merchant, in an effort to protect you, as well as themselves, declined the purchase. Ever had a merchant call you to verify a purchase or address? That’s because the merchant is trying to protect you and them from a potentially fraudulent purchase after your bank has already approved it.

I invite any of you to ask your bank why? Why they do not verify the information that you provide when making an online purchase before they approve that purchase. Why they make it incumbent upon the merchant to verify information, information that they themselves provide, instead of verifying it themselves before they issue an approval and hold your money. Why reputable merchants are doing more to protect you from the potential misuse of your credit card and decline transactions than they are.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Dave

There’s no shortage of chatter when it comes to Google and their stance on “paid links”. They have made it clear that pages that contain “paid links”, which they’ve chosen not to define, must be identified for a machine, spider, and/or algorithm, or they will suffer if they do not tag those links with machine readable code. Specifically, rel=”nofollow”.

Failure to comply with their “request” may result in the “offender” having their toolbar PR reduced and Google has indeed threatened to “penalize” sites that don’t comply, by harming their rankings. The biggest problem I see with this is that it’s destined to fail.

It doesn’t matter why they’re trying to do this. Doesn’t matter what their true motives are. Doesn’t even matter if their right or not. What matters is how they are doing this and is why their stance destines them to failure.

Googles “job”, the very business model on which they are based, the business model upon which they derive all of their income boils down to something quite simple…

1. Gather data…
2. Interpret that data…
3. Produce “results” based upon that interpretation.

Not that difficult a concept.

I’m certainly not trying to slight Google or what they do but those 3 things are, very basically, what makes them what they are. Their ability to… gather, interpret, and produce, to the satisfaction of their users.

This is what their latest “revelation”, their latest addition to to their webmaster guidelines states…

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the tag
Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

Sorry Google, but this latest “edict” is destined to fail.

You’ve decided not to change the way you interpret the data you gather, and the results you deliver by that interpretation, but to try and forcibly change the data you gather to meet your means of interpretation.

How is you forcing the manipulation of data to meet your desired interpretation a good thing?

One additional thought. Doesn’t Yahoo and MSN support “nofollow”? If so, isn’t Google forcing people to prevent both Yahoo and MSN from following links to be compliant with Googles new guidelines?

Dave

There’s been many discussions on the value of web directory links of late. Directories being devalued and pages being removed from their index. Do directory links still have value and can they drive visitors and potential customers to your site? In a word, yes.

It’s important to realize that not all directories are created equal and not all of them are necessarily quality directories providing solid resources and quality links. The question is, what is a quality directory and how can you tell?

First things first. For those of you using the Google toolbar and the “little green PR indicator”, turn it off. That’s right, disable it, and turn it off. Look at and analyze the directory for what it is and what it delivers to the visitors of the site. No cheating, turn it off at take a closer look at the things that really matter. How well is the directory categorized? Do the descriptions actually describe the site or are they simply advertisements? Is the directory providing quality listings or is it “come one come all”?

One in particular I like is the Crosswalk Directory. It’s a general niche directory that targets the religious conscious searcher looking for Christian related or owned businesses, Ministries or Churches. Well maintained and categorized and can drive targeted traffic and is what I would consider a quality resource for visitors.

Deep Link Directories

Deep link directories are a viable way to help get pages that are deep within a site indexed as well as direct visitors right to the most important informational and resource pages deep within a site. Again, the quality of the directory and what it provides to the visitor matters.

There’s of nice lists of directories that accept deep links you can find at the Directory Critic. Remember, do your own due diligence and decide for yourself whether or not the links being listed are quality resources that you want a link to YOUR site to be included.

As an example, the Deep-Link-Directory.com, one that appears to be very new, is well categorized, is a PPR deep link directory where inclusions are reviewed by an actual editor and makes it clear that not all submissions are approved and appears to focus on the quality and relevance of the links they include.

As far as I’m concerned, directory submissions and links from directory remain an excellent opportunity to facilitate indexing and drive valuable traffic to your website. Google still suggests submitting websites to directories. Just make sure you take the time to evaluate the site or directory where you’d like your link included.

Finally, for those of you who actually did turn off or disable the “little green fuel gauge” as I suggested earlier, go ahead and fire it back up if you’re going through withdrawals. Hopefully, you’ll have a little bit better insight and perspective into actually evaluating a site or directory for what it is and what it delivers to visitors. For those of you who didn’t… guess you have to hope it never gets turned off or becomes obsolete.

Dave

Is there such a thing as writing naturally for SEO purposes and benefits?

Seems like a silly question doesn’t it? Well, I guess it just surprises me a bit when the subject comes up, gets debated, and usually ends up with someone checking the keyword density and arriving at a ranking conclusion based entirely on that.

MJTaylor over at WPW asked this very question in a recent thread…

Is it possible to write naturally and optimize for the search engines?

Well of course it is!

Look folks, for just a minute, hide all of your tools, especially that keyword density checker. Yes, even your spellchecker… use a dictionary.

Now pick a subject, any one at all and simply write. Write as if you’re actually having a conversation with someone. Simply write naturally. Once you’re finished, reread what you’ve written and make any additions or changes and title it. Remember… NO TOOLS! Just your brain. File it and forget it for the time being.

Now, pick another totally different subject. Use all the writing tools, density checkers, thesaurus, keyword suggestors that you want. Make all the changes you want and title it. Finished?

Okay, give both pages to someone to read and ask them what they honestly think. You may find yourself surprised at to which page they preferred reading.

Don’t get me wrong, there are tools that can help you when you’re writing for SEO but far too often, people rely solely upon those tools to determine the final product, adding keywords, phrases and text to SATISFY THE TOOL AND NOT THE READER.

Write naturally first. It’s far more pleasing to read than a page that was obviously written with SEO and ranking as its primary purpose. It’s easy to spot those from a mile away and is often no fun to read because the key phrases and related phrases are stuffed into the text every time a “tool” tells the writer to do so.

Natural writing for SEO can have even more benefits than what’s simply on the surface. Interesting and fun writing, even when it may not be the “best” writing, keeps people’s attention. They’re more likely to read it instead of skimming and more likely to read other things you’ve written. More likely to tell other people about it and more likely to link to it.

Dave

I’ve been in the jewelry business for more than 25 years, a jeweler by trade. I see a whole lot of new and innovative pieces of jewelry all the time. It’s not very often I see a product that makes me go… WOW! That is cool!”. Well, I recently found one… the Entire Bible Pendant.

This pendant features a crystal center on which the entire bible, all 788,000 words of the Old and New Testaments, around a cross micro-engraved into the surface of the crystal and framed in gold. All this, on a pendant that’s smaller than a quarter. To read the bible on the pendant, yes you can read it, you need a microscope. This very well may be the smallest known printing of the entire bible in the world.

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking to Abraham McAllister, co-owner of Advanced Micrographics LLC, the technology firm which introduced the Entire Bible Pendant using advanced integrated circuit technology. Not only am I pleased to feature this bible pendant on CHAINZonline.com, I’m really looking forward to what they come up with next.

Dave

It seems every time I turn around I find yet another reason as to why SEO is a dirty word. Not surprisingly, that reason is exactly the same as almost all the others.

Take a look at this thread titled SEO for Google on WWS. A straight forward very basic question asked by folks new to SEO all the time. Basically…

“How do I rank well in Google?”

Innocent enough right? Wrong! Look again. Take a close look at the original poster’s profile and the website they list. What a surprise. Yet another company selling SEO services asking for very basic help in doing what they sell. Yes, I did consider that this may be another of those (cough) “creative” spam posts made simply in a effort to get the URL or link out there. However, any SEO company worth their salt would not have “stupidity” associated with the services they sell.

No small wonder that SEO is fast becoming a dirty word with help like that.

No, I don’t want to get into yet another prolonged debate about how “easy” SEO is supposed to be. But I do have a simple question for those who “think” it is…

If SEO is so damned easy how come there are so many people or companies selling the service that don’t have a clue as to how to do it?

Riddle me THAT Batman.

Dave

The random surfer may not have noticed that the supplemental index tag has been dropped the webmaster and SEO communities sure have. On July 31st 2007 a post on Google’s Webmaster Blog announced the change. It is still possible to see which of your pages are in the supplemental index by performing a search for site:yoursite.com/& on Google. I’m very interested to see if this means of “seeing” your supplemental pages gets eliminated in the near future.

What I find most interesting from the official announcement is this…

We’re also working towards showing more Supplemental Results by ensuring that every query is able to search the supplemental index, and expect to roll this out over the course of the summer.

This will be a drastic departure from the way Google has produced search results. Instead of looking into the regular index first and only moving onto the supplemental index only if they cannot find enough good matches there, they are going to have to implement a new threshold if indeed they want to “ensure” all queries reach the supplemental index.

While I can certainly see where exact phrase matches or titles be used to help this happen with multiple word queries, what about very popular two word queries or single word searches? A search for SEO as an example, would likely never make it to the supplemental index unless they develop a very specific stopping point at which they automatically looked into the supplemental index. What if that stopping point was a specific number of pages?

If we suppose that the data set that is built for a query is still around 40K pages, then one possibility would be to automatically stop looking in the regular index for matches at a predefined number and then move onto the supplemental index to finish filling the data set with the best matches from there. Naturally, they would have to start, if they already haven’t, fully parsing and indexing the pages that are in the supplemental index for something like this to have any real effect. This would give pages in the supplemental index a fair chance at being ranked.

Will all queries reach the supplemental index in 2007 or shortly after? I certainly hope so. The supplemental index is simply not what it used to be and it contains plenty of fine pages that deserve the opportunity to be found and seen by the random surfer. Time will tell if this is merely wishful thinking or a true departure from what was, to something that should definitely improve the quality of Google’s search results.

Spring is upon us and the itch for Charter Fishing Lake Michigan simply needed to be scratched. So with that in mind, I booked an early morning charter on 04-22-2007 with Captain Rich Tanner of Stellar Charters out of Kenosha Wisconsin.

Early spring fishing on Lake Michigan can be hit or miss but, as Captain Rich explained, fishing out of Kenosha can boast nice catches of Brown Trout before the Coho Salmon move in from the south and east. We found this out first hand when shortly after leaving the harbor the first fish in the boat was a stellar Brown Trout weighing a hefty 10 pounds.

The weather was perfect that morning with sunshine and a light 1-2 foot chop on Lake Michigan. By the end of our 5 hour charter our group had boated 11 Brown Trout missing only 2. A very nice way to christen a couple of members of our group who had never been fishing on Lake Michigan before on Captain Rich’s inaugural charter for 2007 fishing season.

I’m looking forward to doing some more Lake Michigan Charter Fishing as the Coho Salmon, Steelhead Trout and hard fighting King Salmon are caught in greater numbers throughout the spring and summer. You can bet that our group will be aboard the Stellar with hard working Captain Tanner at the helm for our next fishing charter.

Thanks for the memorable trip Rich!

Dave

Clearly, Google still has serious issues on how they handle subdomains when delivering search results.

Try a search for Religious Jewelry as Art for example. You’ll find that IAF.net litters the SERP’s. They start with a result on page 2, then 3 results on page 3. After that, page after page after page of listings that contain nothing more than yellow page listings.

Personally, I think this speak volumes as to whether or not Google gives subdomains preference when delivering “relevant results” and their inability to handle them properly.

Google, could you please explain to me how, out of the first 210 results you deliver for a search for Religious Jewelry as Art, 181 yellow page listings from IAF.net is relevant to the searcher?

Dave