There was a short period in the late 90s and early 00s when I would use “disposable” email addresses for everything. I had “catch-all” email addresses such as anything@example.com which I would when signing up for a site where I was unsure of their email practices. If I signed up on “this-domain.com” my email would be “this-domain.com@example.com” and I could track which services were selling my email without my knowledge or not.

The concept here is if the vendor started to spam me, or sold my name, I could block » Continue reading “Ongoing list of bad email practice providers”

The X and the "up" icon added recently to Google results

I noticed in the past two or so months, after Google upgraded their SERPs to enable users to rearrange and delete results (see thumbnail to right) that the outbound links Google was posting on SERPs were redirects through the google.com site (meaning, they were tracking clicks on outbound links.)

Since I often search for something on Google, then “right-click”, “Copy” to get a link, I noted the links were not the actual links, but Google.com links. This went away shortly thereafter.

Today, checking again, they are using JavaScript to track outbound links (View Source on a SERP and examine the outbound links).

For example, one of our » Continue reading “Analysis of Google outbound link tracking”

Remember when all these terms meant consumer products?

Well, according to Clicky, Smackdown and a discussion forum on Webmaster World, many webmasters are fearful of AJAX-only search from Google.

As I wrote in a recent article on Helium (a low-traffic one, at that), Google is a near-monopoly, and user Shaddows here points out that opting out of Google’s index (say, in protest) is commercial suicide, and I humbly agree.

For SEO, this obviously bodes not well. » Continue reading “Uh-oh. AJAX-powered search kills keywords in referrers”

Ever seen Google down? Me neither. Sure, I’ve seen the “Gmail not available” message, and “Service unavailable” once or twice, but it was only for a few seconds, really.

That said, last month for about 15 minutes, it appeared that Google was down. At first I did what’s called a Domain Name lookup in DNS which normally looks like » Continue reading “At first I thought Google was being hacked”

You can contact me at “kent -at- no spam marketruler dot no spam com”, and remove the term “no spam” from that address.

And I kid you not, you see this on a lot of sites, even ones which » Continue reading “The death of the email link”

In full disclosure, I work for Market Ruler, LLC which makes a Marketing Tracking Tool for Marketing Agencies called ConversionRuler, and have a vested interest in the success of aforementioned company.

That said, I recently had the pleasure of working with a new sales consultant, who asked a rather benign question: Why do your customers like ConversionRuler?

In all honesty, about a year ago, I wasn’t completely sure. I mean, I know people liked the real-time reporting, the details we provide, and the ease of use of our interface, but in all honesty, the core reporting we offer hasn’t changed dramatically in a while. » Continue reading “Why people like ConversionRuler”

I’m talking about time as represented by, say, your watch, and I’m talking about it in context of internationally agreeing on time.

You think about time and it’s no big deal, right? Twice a year we have to change our clocks for some insane reason which has to do with farmers milking their cows or » Continue reading “Time is hard”

You. I am talking to you.

When you receive an email which says “Forward this to everyone you know,” you forward it, right? I know it’s you. You want to. It’s a little shout-out to everyone you know that says “Hey, I’m here! I have the scoop on this … email that was just forwarded to me by my friend in Boise, Idaho.”

I finally convinced my mother to stop sending these to me, knowing that » Continue reading “Google, Yahoo! and everyone is tracking you!”