SEO Marketing Changes Update

Posted on December 11, 2017February 22, 2018 by Alex

The ever evolving environment of the internet is too much for one person to follow. I’m grateful to the folks who provide ‘Content Samurai’ for their regular updates. (See the post for a free trial to ‘Content Samurai’ and make professional videos like this yourself) They are one of the many resources we use to stay informed and we thought this a good update to share.

Here is a video, highlighting recent SEO Marketing related changes, from the company who provides Content Samurai (try it free here). They cover the Google ‘crawling scheme’ changes, ‘Reels’, and how ‘Snapchat’ changes provide new advertising opportunities.

Spider? Algorithm? For advanced SEO enthusiasts, the Google Webmaster Central Blog has an article about how to render AJAX-crawling pages to get ready for the change when Google switches off their AJAX crawling scheme.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2017/12/rendering-ajax-crawling-pages.html

Protecting Your Credit Information

Posted on September 30, 2017November 15, 2017 by Alex

Since Equifax lost the private information of most of the adults in the USA, I’ve had several clients and friends bring up the topic. I thought I’d share some web links to shed a little light on the subject. You should consult with financial and legal professionals for guidance and to verify anything you are unsure of and might find on the internet.

A short video from the L.A. Times regarding freezing your credit.

If you’d like to enroll at Equifax for their service to work with your credit, they’ve made it free. You can go here
https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com.

You can visit each of the 3 credit bureau’s websites to get more information about placing a security freeze on your credit report.

Equifax: Freeze Your Equifax Credit Report, 1-800-685-1111 (NY residents 1-800-349-9960)
Experian: Freeze Your Experian Credit Report, 1-888-397-3742
TransUnion: Freeze Your TransUnion Credit Report, 1-888-909-8872

LATEST UPDATE at posting 9/30/17

It looks like some foreign country did the hack and now has our information.

ICANN Control Just Became International

Posted on October 1, 2016May 2, 2020 by Alex

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

This organization has been in charge of domains since 1988 and has been located in the United States. Today it has changed hands and is now under the control of an international body. This change has been highly politicized. Which, given the internet is an American invention and is the result of our combined needs for a “nuclear proof” nationwide means of communication and to rapidly move geometrically increasing amounts of binary data, is quite understandable.

We’ve had occasion to utilize the ICANN organization in the protection of a client’s domain and were very satisfied at how their rules and administration over them protected our client, the rightful owner. It shall be interesting to see how the internet will change in the new global community, under international control, and in a very unstable time in international politics.

Ed Black, chief executive of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said in a statement, this transfer is “a symbolic, but important step in preserving the stability and openness of the Internet, which impacts free speech, our economy and our national security.”

The new body which is now in charge of ICANN is IANA, The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. Their website says, “IANA is responsible for coordinating the Internet’s globally unique identifiers, and is operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).”

It is certainly a challenging thing to have an open environment which is also safe. Both in terms of governments and networks. We’ll do our best to keep you posted of changes which may impact you and your business. Working together, Americans have always overcome the most difficult challenges. Technology has given us a chance to grow and learn how to work with our international partners on the internet and in space.

Working together, our clients have the peace of mind knowing we are focused on their internet presence, so they can focus on their customers. My favorite team is Ours 🙂 Join us!

Change Your Yahoo Password NOW!

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Alex

After agreeing to sell their company to Verizon, Yahoo announced that they had a security breech in 2014 where 500,000,000 (that’s 500 MILLION!) user names and passwords were taken along with other data. Evidently, Yahoo did not encrypt their data. Once the hackers got in they had access to everything.

Here is a link to Yahoo’s help page, “Signs of a hacked account and what to do“. Don’t look for signs. Change it right now for your own protection!

It will be interesting to see how this revelation impacts the sale of Yahoo to Verizon as will the ongoing anti-trust concerns over the deal. We’ll be following this with interest as it seems net-neutrality issues are also involved. Here is a related article on the Fortune website. What do you think?

Here is an excellent article on the Wired.com Website about good password practices and tips for easier to remember and more secure passwords. It’s titled, “7 Password Experts on How to Lock Down Your Online Security“. But, before you read it, change your Yahoo password!

note: We have no relationship to the organizations who’s articles are linked above. They simply were found to be interesting and relevant to the subject of this article.

Safari Browser Issues Fixed!

Posted on January 28, 2016April 6, 2017 by Alex

My MacBook Pro is a wonderful machine. I can work anywhere on it. A couple of days ago, I suddenly was unable to type addresses in my Safari Browser address bar. I checked my firewall, my anti-virus, I did a reboot and it still would not work.

Then I did a search. I found there have been some issues in the last few days related to the ‘Smart Search’ settings in the Safari preferences on both OS X and iOS devices. Shortly after I found the solution, so did Apple. A bug was found in their ‘Safari Suggestions’ feature and they have fixed it!

Why share this in a post? You may have experienced the same issue and be wondering if your computer is stable.