Category: information

SEO Pay by Performance

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All businesses get endless emails offering SEO services.

SEO services is Search Engine Optimisation which just means tweaking your website to try to get a higher ranking on Google and other search engines.

At the radio station we get more than a hundred of these emails each month.

But the SEO people have a difficulty in that Google keep changing the rules for how they determine the ranking of a website and hence where it appears in the search engine results. Google do this to try to stop SEO people cheating the system. Google want the best websites to appear top of the list – not the ones that try to cheat the system.

A recent email from an American Online Marketing business says SEO is dead!

But they have a solution to that – you pay for results rather than the work involved.

At first sight, this might sound like a good deal – you only pay if they get your website high up on Google’s rankings.

But the devil is in the detail.

For example, suppose you sell sofas. If you type Buy a sofa in Google you get about 42 million results. To get to the top of that list on Google for the search phrase “buy a sofa” would cost a fortune.

But if you make your search phrase more specific then it gets easier.

Maybe your sofas are handmade and covered with leather. Now if you optimise your website to attract people searching for ‘buy a sofa handmade leather’ then Google only finds 500,000 results and that would still cost a lot to get to the top of that results set but hugely cheaper than the previous one.

And so on – the more detail in the phrases you’re trying to be the top result for – the easier and hence cheaper it becomes.

Ultimately you can find specific phrases where it is practical to get to the top of the list – but the more specific the search query the less people are going to make that search and hence the fewer actual customers you could possibly get from this.

But the point is that although the SEO business could find phrases that get you to the top of the results –  you’re unlikely to get much business from it – hence you pay them for nothing.

Stop-Scammers Has a Database of Female Scammers

victorian_criminalSTOP-SCAMMERS.COM 

This website is all about female scammers who lure men into fake relationships in order to scam money from them. The site has an impressive amount of information including over ninety thousand photos of scammers, twelve thousand scam letter sets and seventeen thousand published reports.

Stop-Scammers.com says it is the place to find the most up-to-date information on female scammers anywhere in the world. The database lists known scammers together with corroborating evidence like correspondence, photos, countries of known operation and documentation commonly used by these international thieves.

SCAM SCENARIOS

There are many scenarios including she feigns  illness and needs money for treatment, or she needs money to fly to meet you but the most common is called the standard scenario.

STANDARD SCENARIO

The scammer maintains regular correspondence but all of the letters have only general content, lacking in details. After a few letters, she needs to start getting money from you. Maybe to buy a computer or to pay a fine or for a language course – could be any reason. She may claim her money was stolen or that she has to escape from her home. Whatever the reason – she wants money and as long as you keep providing it then the relationship continues. As soon as you stop paying, the relationship stops and you won’t hear from her again

 

Go to http://fightbackonline.org/index.php/guidance/19-websites-and-resources/21-website-of-female-scammers-stop-scammers-com  for further information.

Can Someone Ransom Your Computer Files?

Ransom NoteYes they can. A malicious piece of software called ransomware can be unintentionally installed on your computer and hold you to ransom for access to your own files.

You may have clicked on a seemingly innocent email or website and the ransomware has downloaded to your computer. Then a screen appears with a message such as

“All of the files on this computer have been encrypted. You have 24 hours to submit payment to receive the encryption key, otherwise your files will be permanently destroyed.”

You can choose to pay, in the hope of getting access to your files but there is no guarantee. You can choose to ignore the threat or you can go to an IT expert for assessment.  Sometimes the message on screen is more threatening, such as

It may display what looks like an FBI page warning that you have committed an illegal act and must pay a fine or it may appear to a UK Police Force or some other authority. It is all fake of course as the FBI and other authorities do not practice blackmail.

To protect your computers against ransomware, make sure you have up to date anti-virus installed, take regular backups of all important documents and consider installing anti malware software.

Across the globe in 2014, there were 8.8 million ransomware attacks reported and this crime is rising rapidly.

For more information go to Ransomware: What is it?

Who Are Action Fraud?

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ActionFraud is the UK’s national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre.

The website is www.actionfraud.police.uk/ and it’s designed for people to report fraud and cyber crimes. They don’t take action against these criminals but they do build up intelligence of the relevant crimes that happen.

ActionFraud is linked with The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) which sits alongside Action Fraud within the City of London Police and they are the national policing lead for fraud.

The NFIB collates and analyses intelligence on fraud, identifying viable lines of enquiry and developing packages for submitting to a police force for investigation.

What happens to my report once has it been made to Action Fraud?

The website says that the reports are sent for assessment by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) helping to build a national picture of where fraud and cyber crime is taking place and how. Experts review the data from these reports to decide whether there is enough information to send to a police force for investigation.

The NFIB aims to send you an update in writing around 28 working days after you have made your fraud report, to advise you what action has been taken on your report.

It’s clearly a good idea that information and reports on these crimes are made to one organisation rather than being spread across all of the Police Forces and that there are experts assessing the level and location and patterns of activity in these crimes

The Action Fraud website does have a lot of information on how to prevent being defrauded  and guidance on aspects of the law but it is primarily for reporting such crimes. And they do warn people of latest scams and related activity.

Lead Generation Companies

lead generation

One big source of spam emails is lead generation companies.

These people are paid to create leads for a business to follow-up.

For example, suppose you have a new product – “pre paid funeral plans” was one that we received a lot of emails about recently.  You can try to find sales leads yourself or outsource to a specialist business that guarantees to find as many leads as you want. And it only charges per lead found.

Sounds a good deal.

Probably this works well sometimes, but often its more about the lead generation companies sending out vast amounts of emails or making huge numbers of cold calls. They don’t have a reputation with the public to bother about – so it doesn’t concern them if they annoy people or waste a lot of people’s time.  If they can provide leads then they make money.

This is why high pressure sales tactics are used.

If you’re in business and you’re going to use lead generation companies – do find out who they will contact and how. Also how they incentivise their staff and what rules they have to stop contacts being pressurised   into things they don’t really want.

Use lead generations companies with care !