Bill Hartzer

Bill Hartzer on Search, Marketing, Tech, and Domains.

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Google AMP Won’t Allow Users to Click Thru to Site

Posted By Bill Hartzer on at

Update: June 12, 2019 – On June 11, 2019, I reported that AMP was having an issue where users could not click thru to the website where the content originated, as described below. This actually turned out to be a “bug”, and it was not intentional by Google to not allow users to click thru to the website when viewing an AMP page. This has now been fixed, and I do not think it was an intentional change in AMP.

In a recent change to the Google AMP interface, Google is not making it easy for users to click thru to the website where the content originates. In the latest AMP UI changes, it appears that users can only share the AMP URL or page that they’re on–they can’t click thru to the site that created the AMP content. If this is the case, and it very much so appears that it is, then Google has essentially made a change that keeps the users on the Google domain. Google has literally taken the content (even though the site allows them to), they’re serving the site’s content up to users, and Google won’t let the visitors go directly to the site. Of course I could be totally overreacting, but let’s look at an example of this. [Continue reading]

Network Solutions Won’t Let Go Of A Domain

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Despite the fact that I transferred a domain name from Network Solutions to another registrar (GoDaddy), Network Solutions still wants me to renew the domain name and has it in my account. I literally transferred the domain name and moved it because technically it’s not my domain name (I bought it for a client). The client only used GoDaddy as their domain name registrar, so I had to move it away from Network Solutions. However, days later, the domain name is still in my Network Solutions Account. At this point, I am assuming that if I don’t do anything, Network Solutions will charge me for a domain name I don’t own, and a domain name that isn’t even at their registrar anymore. [Continue reading]

Google Cloud Went Down Because It Was Misconfigured

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Google Outage

A recent major outage of Google Cloud was caused because of a misconfiguration, not only because of network congestion, like Google initially reported. The outage was described by Google as "network congestion issue in eastern USA, affecting Google … [Continue reading]

What Google Knows About You

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Do you often wonder what Google knows about you? I mean, how much are they tracking, do they know whether or not you visit certain websites, when you visited them, how long you visited them? If you add in Android and you have a smart phone that uses … [Continue reading]

Google Organic Search Listings Can Now Look Like Ads

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Ad favicon - Bill Hartzer

Google's organic search engine listings can looks like Ads, but they are not actually Google Ads. Instead, the site owner has updated the favicon on their website to display an Ad logo. That Ad logo image similar to the black and white Ad symbol … [Continue reading]

Google Tracks Your Purchases

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Google purchases

If you weren't aware, Google tracks all of the purchases that you have made online if the purchase receipts land in your Gmail account. If you're logged into your Google Account, then you can go to the purchases page and see everything Google knows … [Continue reading]

4 Questions to Ask Your Web Host Provider

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questions to Ask Your Web Host Provider

Looking for a new web host for your website? Or you're going to move your website to another web host? Well, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), has a list of four questions to ask when hiring a web host provider. The effort here is applauded. … [Continue reading]

Example of a Google Ads Exploit

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google adwords ad for ebay

From time to time, people come across various exploits, holes, or problems with sites or services. Google's not immune to such occurrences, just like a lot of other sites out there. Certainly Google's had its issues in the past, and I've pointed out … [Continue reading]

Sometimes Google Search is Wrong. Really Wrong

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How many legs does a snake have?

There are times when Google's search results are wrong. Really wrong. So wrong that you start to question whether or not you should even rely on Google's search results for information. Case in point: When you ask Google how many legs a horse has, it … [Continue reading]

ClixSense and i-Dressup.com Settle with FTC

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ClixSense FTC Settlement

ClixSense, an online rewards website, and i-Dressup.com, a dress-up games websites, have agreed to settle with the United States Federal Trade Commission that they failed to take reasonable steps to secure consumers' data. They both allowed hackers … [Continue reading]

Chitika Online Advertising Network Has Shut Down

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Chitika shut down

Chitika, the online advertising network that, at one time, was an alternative to Google Adsense for publishers such as myself, has shut down, effective immediately. In an email sent to publishers late last night (April 17, 2019), Chitika informed all … [Continue reading]

KPMG Moves To Their Own .BRAND TLD

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KPMG home page

KPMG has moved to their own .BRAND TLD (Top Level Domain), the first of the big accounting firms to make the move. Previously they were using the domain name KPMG.com as their home page, and now if you go to KMPG.com in your web browser it will … [Continue reading]

Google Indexes Domains That Have Not Been Registered

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domain indexed in google but not registered

Today I learned that Google will index a domain name that has not been registered. Ever. As in no one has ever registered the domain name, the domain name is available for registration by anyone, and someone could register it if they met the … [Continue reading]