Today I had a former client learn a potentially harsh lesson – letting a domain name expire can come back to bite you. This could mean viruses, pornography, scams, and more all under the disguise of your name. Hopefully you can learn something from their experience of letting a domain name expire.

I won’t name the former client, but they are a church in the area, and they decided last year to end their website. The church board decided they just didn’t need the site and wanted to see it go away.

I thought, and still think, this was kind of crazy since the cost of keeping a site online is really small. But, it’s their website and they were determined to let it go away.

I removed their site, put up a holding page, and allowed their domain name to expire a couple months later. And I never thought about it again. That is, until I received a phone call today.

The church member who had helped to maintain the site called and said the church board was hoping that I could take down the site. Obviously confused, I looked into it and discovered that while I had taken down the site, it had been taken by some unnamed entity.

That’s right – someone bought their expired domain name, scooped up their old site, and put it back online.

I’ve never seen this happen to a client before. I’ve often seen expired domains bought up, but I’ve never seen the site copied and put back online.

Why People Do This

Apparently, since I don’t regularly look for ways to scam people and search engines, I’m behind because this has been going on for some time.

The idea is to snatch up expired domains that rank high on Google. The new owner then searches for cached copies of the site, which are available in lots of places, and puts back up the site. The hope is to capture the clout of these highly ranked sites and then add in their own content. Some of this new content can be malicious, but it often used to make the new owner money.

Experts seem to disagree on if this even works to maintain the page rank, but that doesn’t stop people from trying.

Other Dangers

The main reason we tell people to not allow domains to expire is because of potential embarrassment or worse. If your company or organization is still operating, and you let your domain expire, you could suddenly find your name associated with a scam site or maybe even pornography.

What To Do

So rather than let domains expire, keep renewing them. They are  not that expense on a year-to-year basis (as of this date, domains are $15/year through us). If you want to use a new domain, you can have your old domain forward to the new site. You protect the name and take advantage of the old traffic.

As always, if you have questions, give us a call or send us an email. And feel free to comment below!

This past week Marion Online asked in their poll question if people had ever used a QR code. While 14 percent said they had, about 80 percent selected “What the heck is a QR code.” If you are one of those people, never fear, the answer is actually very simple.

QR codes stands for Quick Response code and they are a type of barcode. One is pictured above. They first became popular in Japan as they were designed there to be used to track inventory in the automotive industry.

More recently, QR codes have become a popular marketing tool. You’ve probably seen the little squared on mail, signs, and in stores. Heck, I even saw one on a billboard the other day. (By the way, I think this is a horrible idea. Do not try to scan a QR code while driving. It’s just dumb.)

To use a QR code, you need to scan it, usually using a smart phone. There are probably hundreds of scanners available for Android and Iphone users, just search the markets. When you scan a code, several things may happen, but the most common use is to send you to a website or video. QR codes are used to get you to a website or give you a special offer without having to type in a long website address.

So the next time you see one of these odd looking squares, use your phone, or borrow someone else’s, and check it out for yourself.

Questions? Give us a call, send an email, or leave a comment!

You head to your favorite search engine, YouTube, or even Facebook to look for something or to read the latest information. Maybe you’re looking for something serious, maybe just for fun. More than likely you are confident in the results that you get when you do your search or read your newsfeed, but did you know that what you see is not always what you want to see? It’s really what the search engine believes you want to see.

Eli Pariser, a successful online organizer and pioneer, reminds us that search engines are filtering what we see online. He calls it the filter bubble and suggests this may cause us to become even more narrowed in our views.

While Eli is worried about our level of broad-based knowledge (frankly so am I), you should also be worried about being passed over when someone is searching for businesses and products. Search engines may very well be passing your website over for your competitors because of a variety of factors.

This is just one more thing to keep in mind when companies come calling promising you high search engine rankings. That promise is hard, if not impossible, to keep and it keeps getting harder.

Check out the video. It’s only nine minutes long and very thought provoking.

Today is a quick tip – use your domain for your email address. Most of us have email accounts with free services like Yahoo or Gmail. But if you are using susieq@yahoo.com instead of susieq@thisiswhatido.com, you are missing out on opportunities to get people to your website.

I don’t know about you, but I’m nosy and when I see an email with a domain name that I don’t know, I tend to go check it out. And there just seems to be something unprofessional about a business card that says @yahoo.com. You have the domain name and the website, why not show it off.

Most website hosts provide email accounts for your domain. If yours does not, then it’s time to look for a new provider (hint, hint).

I understand that you like having your email all in one place. I do too. There are two easy fixes. The quickest is to have your domain email simply forward to your free service email. The best fix though is to use your free service email to check and send your domain email. That way you can receive your email and then send out replies using your domain.

Click here to find out how to do this in Gmail. For Yahoo users, click here. Hotmail users click here. If you use another service, simply search their help section for “check other email accounts” or something like that.

Questions? Let us know!

One of the most important things you can do to improve your search ranking on Google is also one of the easiest to set up. Simply register, or update, your Google Places listing. Let us show you how.

You’ll see Google Places in action if you search for a business in Google. You can also see these when you look at Google Maps. Ever notice that you see businesses on the map? Ever wonder how they got there? This is how.

First, your business may already be listed with Google Places. To find out, go to Google Maps and search for your company (Neighborhood Image, Marion, Ohio) and see if you show up. If you do, it’s time to make sure all the information is correct and add more details.

 

Click on the company name and you’ll be taken to your Google Places page (an example is shown above). Below you can see an example of our page. It has your name, address, phone number, website address, as well as a description and keywords. Or at least it should.

If the information is wrong or incomplete, and to claim ownership of your page, click on the “Edit this place” at the top right-hand corner. Note – you may have to sign into your Google account to do this. Fill out the details and click “Publish.”

You’ll also want to claim ownership of the page. To do this, click the “Business owner?” link in the top right-hand corner of the page. Follow the directions. You will have to verify your information to complete the process.

Like I said, couldn’t be easier.

Now, you can, and should, go further by uploading some photos or your business or work. You can also encourage people to leave reviews of your business. Of course we say you should do this, but as you can see in the photo, we have not done this. I guess I need to get to work.

As always, let us know if you have any questions or need any help!

If you have a Facebook for your business, or even for yourself, you may have noticed that the url address to get to your page is long and has a bunch of numbers. What you need is a shorter, easier to remember address.

For example, the Facebook address for Neighborhood Image is www.facebook.com/neighborhoodimage.

So how do you get you this super special address? It’s easy.

• Log into Facebook and go to your page.
• Click on the button that says “Edit Page” (up near the top, right-hand corner) and you should see a bunch of options.
• Click on “Basic Information” on the left-hand side.
• You should see an option in the middle of the page that says “Username”.
• Click on the option and go through the options to get your new, shorter, easy to remember, address to your Facebook page.

A couple notes – You must have at least 25 “Likes” to your page before you can claim a custom address. Also, be sure about the name, because once you have chosen a name, it is yours for life. There is no way to change it (at least for now).

Let us know if you have any questions and we’ll do our best to help you out.

If you’ve ever gone to what you thought was a business page on Facebook only to see a button that says “Add as Friend,” then you’ve just witnessed a violation of Facebook’s terms. It doesn’t really mean anything to you, but this business or organization is in danger of being shut down by Facebook. We’ve noticed lots of local organizations who have unwittingly violated the rules.

Here is what Facebook says about businesses using a profile instead of a page:

If you are one of those who accidentally went the route of creating a personal profile rather than a business page, there are only two options. Well, three actually, but the third is a really bad idea.

First, you can start up an actual page on Facebook and then tell all of your current friends to “Like” the new page. After a certain amount of time, you would shut down the “illegal” personal profile. This works, but takes time and not everyone will hop over.

Second, you can simply migrate your current profile to a business page. This is automatic, and permanent, and means that all of your current friends will still be on your new page. Again, this is a permanent change so DO NOT test the migration with your own personal Facebook page. Only do this with the profile you use for your business or organization.

Third, you can just keep doing what you’re doing and “hope” that Facebook won’t catch you. This is a bad idea. If you are shut down, you won’t get a warning. It will just happen. Then all of the work you’ve put into building your community will be lost.

So, we recommend the second option. As we said, it’s quick, saves (most) of your information and all of your fans.

The reason we say most is that your photo albums will not be moved, just those in the Profile Photos section, so you will have to save those manually. You can find details on saving your photos by clicking here. You may also lose previous wall posts. At least one person has also reported losing an event they had created when they were still a profile.

The important thing is that you maintain your audience and avoid having to rebuild that valuable resource for your organization.

To migrate your Profile to a Page, click here.

You’ll notice you have several options. The vast majority of users will be happy choosing “Local Business or Location” or “Company, Organization, or Institution.”

Once you’ve migrated, make sure to go through all the options available by clicking on the “Edit Page” button.

If you have any questions or need pointed in the right direction, just let us know. You can also find lots of information on Facebook by going here.