I had never heard of iThemes Security, but the code looked like malware I’ve seen before. And since this site, according to the owner, never had the iThemes Security plugin installed, I was suspicious. Taking a look at iThemes, this code does not look like anything they include in htaccess. It looks to me like malware is using the iThemes Security name at #BEGIN and #END to camouflage their code. I restored a basic WP htaccess file. And yes, there were a number of oddly-named php files which I removed.
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]]>We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.
So there you go. A “mobile-friendly” version will help you in organic search results sooner rather than later. Read the official Google announcement here.
]]>Dear Advertiser,
Thank you for your ongoing partnership with Cars.com and the Miami Herald.
As you may have heard, Cars.com has announced that it will be purchased by the Gannett Company, which currently owns a 27% stake in Cars.com and has been a media partner with the Miami Herald and our parent company, The McClatchy Company, for many years.
We are excited to announce that we will remain your key contact for Cars.com and continue our relationship with this award-winning online destination for car shoppers. The Miami Herald is committed to providing you excellent service and support to drive your success locally, using all of our print, digital and direct marketing solutions.
With 16.5 million new vehicle sales forecast for 2014, it is important to stay in front of potential customers and ahead of the competition. More than 80% of the Cars.com audience is currently in the market for a vehicle. The Miami Herald and Cars.com will drive shoppers to your dealership.
Cars.com offers a way for you to:
- Boost your brand. Differentiate yourself from the competition through your dealer profile.
- Drive more in-market sales. Use optimized search results to showcase your business.
- Keep you ahead of the curve. Our monthly Market Intelligence Reports help you make more informed business decisions.
- Grow your service business. Cars.com has seen a sevenfold increase in traffic to its service-related content, giving your service department powerful online visibility.
- Capture mobile shoppers. Cars.com was named the top-rated third-party mobile site last year by a JD Powers study and is committed to improving upon that user experience to grow your business.
- Reach a larger audience. Nearly half of all vehicles sold in the United States during a nine-month window were to shoppers who had visited Cars.com.
As your partner, we are committed to making your business even more successful. We will be reaching out to you in the coming weeks to answer any questions you may have, share with you our latest products and services and ensure that we are exceeding your expectations.
We look forward to continuing our relationship with you and Cars.com.
Best regards,
Sam Brown
VP Advertising
Miami Herald
After less than a decade of existence, smartphones and tablets this year will draw more money from advertisers than the centuries-old newspaper industry or the nearly century-old radio sector, a sign of just how rapidly technology is transforming media habits.
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Mobile advertising for your business need not be scary or complicated. In fact, you can be running trackable, optimizable, reliable mobile ads tomorrow.
All you need is a Google keyword campaign to start your mobile advertising.
From 2012 to 2013, mobile Internet use in the U.S. more than doubled. Google noticed this and stopped allowing phone numbers in ad copy. Now the advertiser’s telephone number is a separate link that incurs a charge when clicked to call.
Today, about half the clicks in our Google keyword campaigns are generated on a mobile device. Most are for a telephone call to the advertiser. Google allows us to tailor ads by device; phone, tablet or desktop. We can even create links that only appear to mobile users. And we can choose to bid higher or lower for mobile users. That means we can use Google to create mobile campaigns.
Mobile ads give you some cute creative ideas. One of my clients has many of his Google clicks and calls coming from the zip code where his major competitor is located. People are in the showroom and comparing prices on their mobile device! So, we offer to meet or beat the competitor’s prices on mobile device ads! It works. People walk in with the competitor’s estimate in hand.
Small business and professionals should not be afraid of mobile advertising. It’s just another tool in the tool box and you need to learn to use it.
Like anything else, start small, iterate and test. You’ll learn what works for you and your customer base.
photo credit: William Hook via photopin cc
]]>Each Florida Bar member has a specific “page” on the Florida Bar site with all their details listed. Also included is a field which includes the member’s website URL. However, this field does not include an active hyperlink, just text.
So why is it, on the member pages with website URLs, the URL is not hyperlinked to the member’s web site? What possible benefit could there be to NOT linking?
Remember, when determining which pages to show at the top of the search results, Google examines (as just one factor) how many sites hyperlink TO your site, and the “PageRank” of those sites. “PageRank” is Google’s way of measuring a site’s authority and importance. Every site has a PageRank assigned by Google. The Florida Bar site has a PageRank of 5 out of 10, that’s pretty good. The more incoming links you have from high-PR sites, the better your site can appear in the Google search results. Go ahead, check your own PR here, I bet you don’t have better than a 4/10.
So, a link from a high-PR site like www.FloridaBar.org to your site will help your site appear higher in search results. Maybe you’ll be able to get above those directory sites that are trying to sell you a listing for $299 per month. Maybe you, an actual practicing attorney, could get higher search results than lawyers.com or FindLaw or the Yellow Pages. It seems the Florida Bar should be doing everything it can to assist individual lawyers like you, and law firms, to appear higher in Google searches than do the directories and referral services.
Again, I can not see any benefit to anyone for the Florida Bar to not link to your site. Technically, it should be a trivial matter. Maybe I’m missing something. Or maybe it’s time for members of the Florida Bar to request a change.
photo credit: Matti Mattila via photopin cc
]]>]]>“Universities have two audiences: the parent and the child,” Poller told the E-Commerce Times. “The prospective student chooses school based on academic and social offerings, among others. The parent often has veto power and often pays for the university choice.”
When you hit the search button, Google shows results. At the very top of the page is a Google ad taking you to http://FloodSmart.gov, the official NFIP site. The first two organic links are also to FloodSmart.gov but then it gets interesting…
Search result number 3 on the page is to FloodSmartRadio.com which is registered privately. This site redirects visitors to pages at southeastfloodinformation.com which is registered at a trailer park office in Chandler Arizona. I’m guessing an entrepreneur heard the NFIP commercial, realized FloodSmartRadio.com was available and has created a nice little niche selling leads to insurance companies.
Moral of the story? Don’t try to be too cute, don’t use expensive radio advertising telling people to search for something online… It’s much easier to simply point them to your website.
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LinkedIn recently ranked all their 200,000,000 profiles by viewership and sent a congratulatory note to the top 10%… I’ll keep sharing the strange, funny, useful and sometimes outrageous information I find online with you in 2013. Thanks for reading.
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