Local businesses are getting unsolicited sales calls from a company saying they’re from Amazon Alexa. The local business apparently can purchase a listing on Amazon Alexa for a one-time fee of $69 plus a monthly maintenance fee of only $19 per month. I’ve spoken with at least four separate businesses across the United States, from South Florida to Texas to Indiana to South Carolina. They all say they’ve been called by someone saying they’re from Amazon Alexa, selling a similar listing service. [Continue reading]
Fake Conference Attendee Contact Lists Being Sold
Fake email conference attendee contact lists are being sold and the latest targeted conference appears to be Pubcon Las Vegas. Emails that are going out to what a NextGenExpos thinks is a list of exhibitors seeks to sell that they’re calling a contact list of an updated attendees list. I am not an exhibitor at Pubcon Las Vegas 2019–although for some reason I received an email from this company as if I’m currently exhibiting at the conference. [Continue reading]
Google Says Goodbye to Old Google Search Console
Google is saying goodbye to the old Google Search Console. In a post on the official Google Webmaster blog and a tweet, they said that from "now on, if you try to access the old homepage or dashboard you’ll be redirected to the relevant Search … [Continue reading]
US Govt. Social Media Keyword Watch List: Don’t Use These Words on Social Media Posts
A list of keywords that the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses to watch all social media accounts has been revealed. If you use one of these keywords on one of your social media posts, there is a chance that it may cause the DHS … [Continue reading]
How Expired Domain Names Are Used for PBNs, Rebuilds, and Redirects
When someone (or a company, organization) doesn't renew a domain name, the domain name goes through a drop process. First the domain name usually enters a period of time when the current owner can renew the domain name. It's essentially put on hold. … [Continue reading]
Do You Have the Legal Right to be Listed in Google?
Is Google required to list your business or your website in their search engine results? When I mention the word "list", I am referring to whether they are indexing your website in their search results or whether they are listing your business in the … [Continue reading]
What Happened When I Removed My Google My Business Listing
Recently, I made the decision to completely remove my company's Google My Business listing. There are several reasons why I chose to not have my company's website listed in Google Maps any longer. But what's more interesting to me is the fact that … [Continue reading]
Should Google Link Out and Endorse SEOs?
Should Google link out to SEO websites from the official Google Webmaster blog? That's the question that is a hot topic right now: on the official Google blog, should Google link out to a website that offers search engine optimization or digital … [Continue reading]
Travoom: US-Based SEOs Need Not Apply
There's a job opening for a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at Travoom, a site that bills itself as a "social network and marketplace for bucket list travel experiences". But, if you're a US-based SEO expert, then I wouldn't bother applying for the … [Continue reading]
Do Google Ads Influence Their Organic Search Engine Results?
If you advertise with Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), does it impact your website's search engine rankings in Google's organic search engine results? This question has been one that so many have debated over and over again for years. In fact, I … [Continue reading]
Google My Business Short Names are 302 Redirects to Google Search Results
Google My Business recently rolled out a new feature called Google My Business short names. Each verified Google My Business listing can add a short name, which is essentially a URL link to their Google My Business listing, along with a link to the … [Continue reading]
Google Ads Nightmare: Google Spends $225,000 Despite a $500 Per Day Budget
Pamela Lund on Twitter described this scenario perfectly: "this is a nightmare come true. I cannot imagine waking up to find that in an account. That kind of spend in 1 day with only fake conversions could easily put a client out of business and into … [Continue reading]
Google Calendar Is Down
Google Calendar is down. As in inaccessible using a web browser. This is actually the first time I've personally seen Google Calendar down, at least since I've been relying on it more and more--over the past few years. … [Continue reading]
Google AMP Won’t Allow Users to Click Thru to Site
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 … [Continue reading]
Network Solutions Won’t Let Go Of A Domain
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 … [Continue reading]
Google Cloud Went Down Because It Was Misconfigured
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
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]
Tech: SunBrite Veranda Series Outdoor 4K UHD TVs with HDR
This is a sponsored post from the Sunbrite Veranda Series TVs at Best Buy. Yesterday was the unofficial start of Summer, Memorial Day. It's already hot here in Texas. In Texas, though it tends to be summer 365 days a year. That means plenty of … [Continue reading]
Google Organic Search Listings Can Now Look Like Ads
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
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]