Are you totally freaking out and is your heart racing 1000 miles per hour ?  Did you just run a big marketing campaign and now no one can get to your site ?

Well….. go get a big cup of coffee with lots of sugar in it because you are going to be in for a long night, and day and possibly another night. That’s right your going to have a flash backs to your college exam days, no sleep!

How serious is this block and how quick can I get my site back up?

This is very serious and if it happens three times with Google you have a bigger problem.  I know it really isn’t funny, is it?  First, TAKE A BIG BREATH, this is going to take a lot of work on your part to make sure that:

1) your site comes back up clean, (you have a couple of options but nothing less than 8 hours of work)
2) Find out what other monitoring sites have flagged your site (there are a bunch of them that can flag you as having a malware site status)
3) preventing this from happening again.

How did this virus get onto my website and how did this happen?

Whatever you do don’t call and yell at your website guys, believe it or not it probably wasn’t them. The best hosting and website providers have virus scanners in place on their PC’s and know the do’s and don’ts to uploading content and managing a website. If you have ever logged into your website and even posted one single picture, or a picture or video or posted on the website it probably happened from something as simple as that.  Really !

Could be any number of reasons, most of which we will discuss in depth here

- out of date wordpress install
- out of date plugin and/or insecure plugin (mm forms got hit a lot so we removed all usages of it)
- using a free template downloaded from a secondary source
- file permissions set insecurely
- image or video installed on the site with a virus
- ftp hijacked by virus
- insecure hosting and/or shared hosting

As to which one it is, this is a process of elimination.

Realize that if you hosting your website on a cheap hosting company (for example: hosting services at godaddy) then you are probably on a shared server.  The cheaper the hosting the more thousands of people all sharing your same IP address.  That also can mean that you probably don’t have a sophisticated backup and recovery system. If you are on shared hosting then you’re less likely to get to the bottom of it, as you probably won’t have access to the logs necessary to examine what’s happened in detail.

And if you do have a hosting company and website service company you still might not have a malware protection coverage.  Why is that?  Well it is usually a higher level of monthly support cost and most people don’t ever think they will need it.  It takes a lot of work to protect your site and it takes some serious software to monitor  and clean the websites on a regular basis (every 3 to 4 hours).  That cost money for the monitoring software, the security software, the software cleaner tools, the more powerful servers and then of course there is their time which is worth a lot.

And as a computer person let me tell you that I am convinced that the big boys out there (the ones that have the software virus protection software solutions) put out viruses just to make us buy their scrubbers.  I mean come on haven’t you noticed how your iphone needs an update about a month before the new iphone comes out, then all of a sudden you start having a lot of issues with your iphone?  What do most people do?  That’s right, they buy a new iphone  … just saying.

What do I do now?

Well there is not an easy answer.  It really depends how bad the situation is.

Step 1:

First and most importantly, DO NOT do anything until you have cleaned your own personal computer.  Read my post here about “The Simple Steps to Preventing Viruses on Your Website”.

Step 2:

Go check out a couple of things, lets check and see how many websites know about this virus. Read my post here about “How to Check Out Your Website and Who Knows About It” on the world wide web.

Step 3:

Removing the virus  now….. STOP!   Don’t continue to read this until you have gone and done the stuff in Step 1.  No kidding, you don’t want to spend the next couple of hours to clean your website and then you corrupt it all over again.

look for a lot of things so lets do them item at a time…  you will need to check:

1)  wordpress software was manipulated and the following website will show you this  sucuri.net when you run a check at sucuri.net remember to run the check for ALL the urls that Google analytic s tells you has errors.  Running it for the main url is not enough.  You need to clean each problem area one at a time and rerun each time.

However this is not going to tell you everything.  Now you have to manually look for corrupt code in your wordpress install

2) Suspected injected code will be placed inside some of your programs.  Specifically in your header.php and all the index.php files.  You are looking for the following sample of martian looking code :

3) Hacket Google Analytics account and Meta Code was inserted.  Google manager & ownership of file is a great indicator that your primary server was hacked and they inserted meta code.

a)  look at your google analytics account it will tell you the users that have manager access.  This is a very good indicator that you have been hacked and that they want to watch your traffic.  Remove those users and report them to google.

b) usually they have inserted a meta code into your header.php file, and  it will look something like this: <meta name=”google-site-verification” content=”7NfPi4euG5twnvHW9RuARau1SytVyJe2j6qYJYTEFvg” />

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/message

Related Articles:
Google About Marware and Hacked Sites

Contents

1. Guide to WordPress ads plugins
   1. Simple ad code insertion plugins
   2. Full ad management plugins
2. Compare the top three ad management plugins
3. Conclusion

There are two general categories of WordPress ads plugins:

1. a) simple advertisement insertion plugins
2. b) full ad management plugins

Simple ad code insertion plugins

A well developed WordPress ad plugin will not only help you quickly incorporate Google AdSense and banner ads into your WP blog but it can make managing your site’s ad inventory much easier. Some of the desirable features for WordPress ad plugins include things like performance statistics, the ability to rotate ads, revenue sharing, click tracking, impression counting, the ability to integrate third party ads, and automated expiration dates for banner ads. If used correctly, ad manager plugins can help you identify the most effective strategies for dramatically improving ad revenue on your WP site. In this review list we’ve identified some of the best premium WordPress ad plugins as well as several free WP advertising plugins. Keep in mind that premium WordPress plugins tend to offer better support and more frequent updates which may or may not be important depending on your specific needs. Ad code insertion plugins can:

• insert ads in various locations in your posts and pages, like the top, middle or bottom of your posts
• automatically insert ads in your old, archived posts
• easily activate and deactivate ads

Some plugins can do a little more than that, some do a little less. The majority of ads plugins on WordPress.org are of this type. Some of the best are:

COST: VISIT SITE:

You can download WP125 from here >>

COST:

VISIT SITE:

COST:
VISIT SITE:

OpenX

COST:
VISIT SITE:

BuySellAds

COST:
VISIT SITE:

AdRotate
COST:
VISIT SITE:

WhyDoWork Adsense
COST:
VISIT SITE:

Post Layout
COST:
VISIT SITE:

WP-Insert
COST:
VISIT SITE:

Full Ad Management / Premium WordPress Ad Plugins

These are the big boys. Unlike the list of plugins above, these WordPress ad plugins are fully featured and they do much more than simply insert ad code in posts or theme.  When it comes to real ad management and serving, there are only a few WordPress plugins worth mentioning:

• OIOpublisher
• Who Sees Ads
• Advertising Manager
• WP Adcenter

These plugins include some advanced features like:

• tracking click throughs and impressions
• filtering ad display by WordPress categories and tags
• filtering ad display based on user-defined criteria
• let advertisers buy ad space directly from your blog
• and much more!

Compare the top three ad management plugins

I’ve told you a bit about each plugin individually. Now here’s how they stack up against each other.

	OIOpublisher	Who Sees Ads
Support and documentation	Full documentation and support forum	Sufficient documentation, and support in blog comments
Targeting	Based on visitor location	Rich targeting rules
Sidebar widget for ads
Rotate ads	Random	Random
Track impressions
Track click throughs
Banner ads support
Text ads support
In-text links ads support (?)
Facilitate ad purchasing (?)
Affiliate program (?)
Ad server functionality (?)
Refund policy	Within 14-days at vendor discretion	Free software
Price and license	$47 (multi-site license)	Free software

There are many solutions to displaying ads on WordPress: code insertion manually, code insertion with a plugin, using 3rd party ad server, or using a fully featured ad management plugin. If you don’t want to manage your ads from within WordPress and just want a way to display ads, use a Simple Advertisement ad code insertion plugin or insert the code manually by editing your themes or while you’re writing the post.

But I think most people would find their needs met with an ad management plugin.

Related Articles You Are Probably Interested In:

• Best Premium WordPress Plugins For Your WP Blog
• Best WordPress Slideshow Plugins For Your Blog
• WordPress Plugin Developers To Boycott WordPress.org?
• Matt Mullenweg And Automattic’s Double Standard For WordPress Theme And Plugin Developers?
• WordPress Plugin Developers In Dire Need Of A Sustainable Business Model
• Commenting Systems Comparison: WordPress, Intense Debate, Disqus
• Best SEO WordPress Plugins For High Search Engine Rankings
• Best Question And Answer Themes, Plugins For WordPress
• Best WordPress Advertising Plugins For Your Blog: http://tomuse.com/wordpress-ad-plugin/#ixzz2FDqoucIF
• Guide to Managing Ads in WordPress

Change the email address to have a computer code instead of the @ sign.  Most programs are written to skim websites and pick up email addresses then send out a blast to your via that email address, however if the @ is a computer code their programs are not setup to read that number and prevents it from being harvested by spam bots.

They don’t assume you are that smart.

Your visitors to the website, however, will only see the @ on the front end of the display.

here is the blog and tip:

For example, instead of displaying your email address within your HTML with the @ symbol, use the ASCII code equivalent. Your HTML code will look something like this:

you&#64;yourdomain.com

Your email address will look like this within your web page:

you@yourdomain.com

For more great tips on ASCII codes go read:

http://www.web-source.net/symbols.htm

click here to read more

click here to learn more
SHAZZAMMEDIA

OUR WORK

Take a look at our work, and let us know if anything inspires you.

CONTACT US

email general questions to:
info@shazzam-media.com

to reach Georgina Lewis:
georgina@shazzam-media.com

Google Panda is changing the way we use SEO

HAS GOOGLE PANDA
TAKEN OVER OUR WORLD?

Have you heard of Google Panda? It’s been around since February 2011. Since then Google has released an update that may impact small websites. The algorithm itself actually starts with human manpower looking over hundreds of sites, after these humans have done enough, machines take over and spread the human research over millions of other different pages. Google Panda uses a variety of signals to measure levels of activity. Things such as time on site and whether people are actually active on the site are both highly considered. It seems that Google is creating a new way of usage metrics to help users for the relevant pages. Panda does not just focus on pages of a website, it focuses on the entire website. So in other words, if you have pages that rank low on the Panda spectrum, even if you have good relevant content, the entire website will be effected.  The algorithm focuses on content farms. These sites such as ehow, squidoo, Hubpages, and many others were hit hard in the initial release of Goggle Panda. Many of the content farm sites are still working to take back traffic lost from the Panda program. Now, since we know a bit about the Goggle Panda program, let’s figure out how this relates to traditional search engine optimization, or SEO.  Many companies use a program called Google Ad Keywords to find words that will drive them to the top of Google. With the recent Panda update, many of the smaller sites with an abundance of keywords will be targeted. Google says that this in an attempt to only get the best sites to the top, instead of having useless sites and wasting the time of the consumer.

We all know that SEO has been around almost as long as the Internet itself. So are we looking at a push from Google Panda to drive out the strategies of SEO? Let’s not be so quick to judge that. Taking the strategies of traditional SEO is still a good thing. One great strategy that many websites use is link building. It requires time to do this, but can be can have very productive results. Your goal is to include keywords in the anchor of all of these links. This helps to generate a good return to the user when they are searching something relevant. Even if they land on another page, having good and relevant links can lead to them clinking on it from another site and being redirected to your page. Google is acting as if they control the entire Internet, which some would argue they do. But there are still other search engines. Yahoo, MSN, Bing, Ask, and AOL are all ranked within the top 100 websites in the world. We all want to be at the top of Google, but to take away everything we have learned about traditional SEO and just focus on nailing down the details of Google Panda would not be a good use of time. We should still focus on the keywords and we should still focus on making sure that the website we run is relevant. If we were to take Google Panda and learn everything there is to know about it, we would end up in the same place that we are in now. Let’s take an example. Say you are a new company that makes a special blend of water that has vitamins in it. If someone was to search vitamin water, guess what would pop up first? Well, Vitamin Water of course! You have to think about what the consumer is thinking. Looking at the alternate words that have a low competition rate and high search rate is the key to getting to the top. This means in some words, that we have to still learn what we can about the new system, but we should in no way abandon what we have learned about the traditional SEO.

So, what does this all boil down to? Well, it pretty much means that we can’t just abandon the lessons we have learned on SEO. We can’t just drop everything and stop posting relative keywords to our website. Google Panda changes some aspects of what we are doing such as making sure that there isn’t a strong repetitiveness of keywords. We also have to verify that the pages on our sites are all strong and relevant. Like I said before Google Panda focuses on the entire site, so if one page is weak, it could bring down the entire site. Don’t focus too much on Google Panda, keep focusing on evaluating your site and making sure that the content and keywords are strong. If you do this, it seems Google Panda will not have an adverse effect on your site. I will leave you with four words: STRONG LINKS, RELATIVE KEYWORDS.

Related Articles

1) Why Google Panda Is More A Ranking Factor Than Algorithm Update

2) Recovering from Google Panda

3) Has the Recent Google Panda Update Affected Your Blog?

4) The Evolution of SEO with Google Panda

New Ranking system causes Panda-monium in SEO industry

“Change” is an all too familiar word for SEO experts, but apparently a welcomed one for employees at Google.  As if getting to the top of Google wasn’t hard enough already, the fine people at Google just threw a curve ball into the mix.  Enter Google Panda, an update launched in February 2011 that will attempt to poison the crops of content farms, sites with low-quality content.  This latest update has caused some chaos in the SEO industry as experts have to learn new strategies for getting to the top.  However, all is not lost.  Some strategies that were effective before Panda are still useful.  The  information below will explain what has changed and how it can be used to optimize your website.

1. High-quality content.  This should be nothing new to SEO experts.  Google has always placed a great deal of importance on websites that contain high quality content that viewers will find useful.  Google wants its users to find what they are looking for quickly.  However, this idea seems to be the single most important factor in the Panda update.  But, how does Google determine a site’s quality?  Do Google employees actually sit at their desks all day long and rate the quality of millions of websites?  The simple answer is no.  However, Google developed Panda after countless hours of research.  So, Google Panda is designed to think like a human being.  It uses artificial intelligence to determine the difference between high and low quality content. The term “high-quality” is subjective though.  In order to determine if one’s site is of “high-quality” one must first understand how Google defines the term.  Below is a list of questions to ask in order to determine if a site is of “high-quality”.

Would I trust the information on this site? 

If the answer is yes, chances are other viewers will too.

Does the site have duplicate, redundant, or overlapping information?

If this is true, Google will punish the site and give it a lower ranking.  Google wants websites with fresh and original material. Google crawls millions sites daily looking for duplicate content.  This technology allows Google to crawl on multiple pages of a given website in an attempt to find duplicate content.  If a site is found guilty of this, Google will rank this site lower than the site with the original content.

Does this site have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

Through the use of technology, Google crawls sites looking for these types of errors.  Review your site for spelling and stylistic errors to ensure that you are not making any of these mistakes.

Would I be comfortable giving credit card information to this site?

If you can’t trust the site with your credit card information, other viewers won’t either.

Does this site have an excessive amount of ads?

Google places high importance on the ratio of ads to original content.  Too many ads on a page will make Google think that it is a low-quality site.

Is this a page I would bookmark?

If this is a site that you would bookmark, chances are you will be returning to the site.  Sites receiving traffic from returning viewers will rank higher in Google.

2. Make the site unique.   Google ranks a site higher if it contains information, research, and analysis that is unique and original.  When posting information to a site, make sure it is original.  If the information has already been posted to another site, Google will punish you with a lower ranking.  Encourage viewers to stay on the site.  Google rewards websites based on how often users stay on the page and how many pages they visit.  Google also tracks the bounce rate of sites.  This refers to the percentage of users that “bounce” from a given site back to the search results.

3.  Use keywords effectively.  In the past, SEO experts would use a tactic known as keyword stuffing to increase the Google ranking of a site.  Keyword stuffing, or keyword spamming, is the process of filling a site with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking.  However,
the new Panda update has cracked down on this tactic.  Check the site for the following criteria to ensure that your site is not guilty of this:

Misused words

Lists or paragraphs of keywords that are randomly repeated

Repeated keywords

It is important that you don’t include keywords in Alt and Title tags for an image.  Google can mistake this for keyword stuffing.

4.  Use social media and in-bound links to draw traffic to your site.  Facebook and Twitter should be used effectively to increase traffic to your site.  Post links to both of these sites to encourage viewers to visit them.  Also, focus on obtaining trusted in-bound links.  In the past, the more in-bound links you had the higher your Google ranks.  However, Google has recently placed more emphasis on quality rather than quantity.  It is important to have many in-bound links, but you want to make sure that those links are coming from high-quality, trusted websites.  The more traffic you can draw to your site, the higher your Google rank.

Related Articles:

1) Top 5 Google Panda Update SEO Survival Tips

2) Top 3 Google Farmer (Panda) Update Tips: Rank Higher and Make Money Online

3) Beating Google’s Panda Update – 5 Deadly Content Sins

4) Google Panda: 5 Tips You Should Know