Domain Name Registry Scam

The bastards are on the loose again.  You know, the CREEPS  who send you a very official looking “invoice” regarding your domain name registration.   Obviously a LOT of people fill in the form because it looks so damned official.  I’m a “professional” and I have to admit, if I didn’t know better… I’d sign it as well.

It’s bad enough that you have to worry about security online… now you have to guard yourself off line as well.  It’s a form of snail mail domain name phishing.

In case you don’t know, here’s the scoop.   In the fine print it is written that by signing this form you’re authorizing the  transfer of your domain name to THEIR service.  Want to point your DNS to another hosting program.  TOO BAD!  You can’t.  Want to transfer your domain name… can’t do that either… you signed away those rights.

I’ve gotten two emails this week from clients asking about the letters they’ve received via snail mail regarding this scam.

“But I thought my domain name was registered through you?”

My reply, “It is and will be unless you fill out that form and send it in.  Then all bets are off.”

In case you can’t tell, one of my clients made that mistake a few years back.  I don’t think we ever got control of the domain name back.

It INFURIATES me when some slimy bastard tries to use FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) to make a buck.

Well, obviously the scam isn’t working so well anymore, so the slimy bastards have hired a call center to telemarket their service.

I got just such a call this morning.  “Hello.  I’m from Domain Name Registration Services and you will be getting a notice in the mail about changes to your domain name account.”

“Why will I be getting that?” I asked.

“Uh, because there are changes in your domain name registration account,” she replied.

“Why?” I asked again because I can be a horse’s ass sometimes.

She started stumbling so badly it was literally incoherent jibberish.  I began thinking of the dear, sweet woman who wrote to me earlier this week and thought about how different this phone call would be if she were in my place.   That visualization set me off and with that,  I let loose on that poor telemarketer.

You know you’ve reached a new low when a telemarketer hangs up on you.

IF YOU DON’T KNOW ALREADY:

• Don’t click on links in emails regarding your domain name .  Go to  the web site where you registered your domain name and renew it.
• If you didn’t register your domain name via snail mail, don’t respond to snail mail messages regarding your domain name.
• Your domain name registrar will NOT be phoning you about your domain name… even if you haven’t paid the bill.

By the way, these rules apply to your CREDIT CARD, YOUR BANK and YOUR PAYPAL accounts as well!!!

It’s only classified as paranoia if they ARE NOT out to get you.

How “Regular” People Use the Web

Frank Gilroy has a GREAT post on his observations on “6 Things Regular People Aren’t Doing on the Internet.”

He also covers some I haven’t harped upon like “buying big ticket items sight unseen” and “telecommuting” but first and foremost on his list is this: “regular” people aren’t subscribing to RSS feeds.

It’s a common question for tech teachers such as Dave Taylor and despite a WEALTH OF posts and pages on how to subscribe,  according to SlashDot… as of January 2007, only 12% of internet users knew what RSS was and even fewer, 4% used it knowingly.

Most of my clients aren’t creating web sites directed at the tech savvy 4-12%….  instead, they’re focusing on reaching “regular” people…. which is why I recommend that ALL of my clients treat RSS in the same manner  that they treat the search engines.

Treat RSS as if it doesn’t exist.  Any RSS subscribers to your blog are “gravy”.  The real value is in your email newsletter.  The level of trust required to subscribe to your RSS feed is minimal (see Trust is Not Transitive) so even if regular people WERE using RSS to subscribe, it’s still a good idea to have an email newsletter in addition to your RSS feed from your blog.

If your customers are “regular people” you’ve got to meet them where they live.  Regular people may not understand RSS but they do understand email and that’s where your email newsletter comes in handy!

GoDaddy Domain Names and Hosting May Put Your Business in Danger

I’ve had more than one client politely listen to my warnings about using GoDaddy as a domain name registrar/host and then go right on using their services. I do understand their reluctance to accept my warnings at face value. After all, I do offer in the course of my business what I believe is a “better” alternative.

I wrote way back in April 2007 on my free Blogger account about the GoDaddy Tar Baby. (You can actually see that at that time, I recommended the service for my clients. UGH! More crow for me to eat…. see my post “Quasi Scientific Blogging Observations).

Back to the Tar Baby that is Godaddy…. for those who think that the stories are of the “urban legend” category, Mashable offers this recent report GoDaddy Pulls the Plug on RateMyCop.

Daily Blog Post concurs and offers commentary on the “quality” of the hosting services at Godaddy as well.
Trouble has been brewing at GoDaddy for a while. Here’s an article I wrote a while back about GoDaddy’s troubles for my clients (it’s a PDF…. so you might want to save this rather than try to open it in your browser.)

Shortly after I wrote and posted that article, Godaddy began donning the cap of “internet police”… the horror stories are chronicled at the site NoDaddy.com In response, I created a GoDaddy Transfer package for my clients. A few took me up on the offer.

I will admit, I still use Godaddy’s domain name registration services for picking up domain names I have yet to put into “action”…. but now, I’m considering whether or not this is wise.

See the following for why I’ll probably be closing my Godaddy hosting account:

• Godaddy grabs a valuable domain name from their customer because of invalid email and profits from it.
• Godaddy silences Police Watch Dog Site Rate My Cop Update
• Web Hosting Talk Thread

Hey, I’m just like everybody else. My preferred ICANN registrar charges a LOT more than Godaddy does…. and I don’t want to pay more than I “have” to for my excessive list of domain names. But I’ve been getting a LOT of “update your information or else” emails from them and it makes me nervous… because I DID pay for those domain names because I DO want access to them!! Paying less than $10 per domain name looses it’s attractiveness when you realize that they can be taken from you on a whim.

On one  hand, some of those names on the list aren’t worth paying more for… which should have been my FIRST clue that maybe they weren’t as grand as I thought they were when I was registering them.  However, on the other hand, there is a short list for the ones I’m being “hassled” on from Godaddy and those domain names are all extremely short and all revolve around online video.   Perhaps there are “squatters” waiting on those domain names just waiting for a mis-step on my part.

Questions about Web Site Traffic: Hits vs Visitors

I’m having these conversations more and more often… so I probably need to address it here… again. It’s about web site log files and the analysis of them.

Here’s how it goes: Web site owner contacts me… says his web site is getting 3,000 unique visitors each and every month. Then says despite the huge traffic, the web site in question is not working.

Is there anything I can do to help?

When these come in via email, I begin with detective work. Since I don’t have access to this person’s log files, I go and look at said website with the Alexa and Google PR tool installed in Firefox. Alexa tells me said web site is 11,080,071.

WOW! I didn’t know Alexa WENT that high. I know it’s not reliable for sites out of the top 100,00 and according to Aaron Wall in his post “Wow! My Alexa Ranking is Great!“says that

Just a few people from each browsing my site with an Alexa toolbar caused the rankings to nearly double, which is a huge change on a logarithmic scale for a site in the top 10,000.

So yeah… the Alexa toolbar is not a reliable measure of traffic. It only measures how many people who have the Alexa tool bar installed have visited the site. Those visitors tend to be web master types who are nosy about other people’s traffic. But for 3,000 visitors to come to a site in a relatively short period of time (one month) to a relatively NEW site (less than 6 months old), WITHOUT any other form of promotion is highly unlikely.

Next, I head over to Compete.com. No data for the site there either. Hmm…. the site IS a WordPress blog but it isn’t linking out and according to it’s PR ranking (which is zero) it’s not getting a lot of link love from reliable sources. It’s also not registered with any of the social networking tools for blogs like Blog Catalog or Technorati.

At this point, I have to question whether we’re seeing VISITOR or HITS.

To clarify, a hit is defined as a “call” made to the web server. Every time a visitor enters a web site, depending upon the structure of the page, they will cause MULTIPLE “hits” to the server. If a web site or blog has 49 small graphics on the page, every time a visitor loads the page, the site will register not one hit, but perhaps 50 or more hits on the server (49 graphic files plus the html file. PLUS any java applets, etc which are also “hitting” the server).

With this in mind, 3,000 “hits” may actually translate into 60 unique visitors.

A good traffic analysis program will actually TRACK the visitor’s movement throughout the site. I ADORE the program Click Tracks for this, but it can be a bit pricey for the “non-professional” webmaster. If you’re serious about using your web site to market your business, it’s a GREAT investment. (I need to upgrade my version as I see there are lots of shiny new toys in their latest version!)

So as you look at your log files, whether it be AW Stats and Webalizer (both are better at providing amusement rather than hard data, but they are free and readily available) remember that a VISITOR is not the same as a “hit”. It’s also important to note that I’ve had a couple of cases of client blogs with fewer than 100 visitors per month who are actually seeing client referrals from their blogs. I’ve also heard complaints from people with blogs with incredibly high visitor counts who aren’t seeing ANY referrals of clients from their blogs… which is the opposite side of the same coin.

The moral to that story: A handful of interested potential clients reading your blog is much, much better than a throng of visitors who want something for nothing.