My company works with several hundred small businesses, providing a wide range of Internet and printing-related services. We have built online commerce websites for many of our clients. In some instances, these small businesses have not made arrangements to process credit card transactions or are seeking to make a change in their credit card merchant services provider. After a bad experience with another company, my research led me to Sage Payment Solutions, a division of Harris Bank, in late March of 2009. I set up an account for my own company and agreed to provide referrals to clients who might be in need of these services. The referral agreement that I signed is dated March 27, 2009. I never should have signed that agreement, and the working relationship with Sage proved to be even worse than my bad experience with the previous merchant services provider.

Soon after I had made the first two or three referrals, I began to realize that Divina A. Rutherford, the “senior account executive” (called a “referral agent” on the agreement) assigned to our account at Sage Payment Solutions, was using high-pressure sales techniques and attempting to sell our clients services that they did not need, a practice which was totally inconsistent with our company’s standards. At that point, I stopped referring our clients to Sage Payment Solutions and found another merchant services provider for my own company’s credit card transactions.

Unfortunately, once you sign an agreement with Sage Payment Solutions, it is very difficult to terminate that agreement. Time and again, over the course of these two years, I have had ACH debits from our bank account for specific services which we were not utilizing and which I had not authorized. I had to contact Sage Payment Solutions on several occasions to get these debits credited back to our account. Each time, I would explain that I would like to end our agreement; however, entering into an agreement with Sage Payment Solutions is akin to being held hostage.

On March 7, 2011, I received a statement in the mail from Sage Payment Solutions with a charge of $11.35 that was deducted from our account. This charge consisted of $9.25 for an “Annual 6050W Tax Filing” and $2.10 for “6050W Monthly Reporting”. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I contacted Ms. Rutherford and James Cummings, the Director of Project Management & Compliance working out of Sage’s offices in Lawrenceville, Georgia, who had assisted me in previous instances. My only response came from Ms. Rutherford, who wrote, “The charges for the IRS annual 6050W filing is (sic) required by the IRS from reporting entities to report payment card transactions and third party network transactions to the IRS for each calendar year beginning January 1,2011. As a result of this, we, Sage will be required to file an annual information return with the IRS and provide merchant payee with a corresponding form 1099-K, reporting monthly and annual gross sales, thus we have also the monthly reporting fee of $2.10. Again, this is a requirement from IRS and we are just in compliance. All processors not only us are required to do so. Thank you.” I replied that I understood the new IRS filing requirements; however, the IRS does not require that any fees be charged for the preparation and filing of those forms. I pointed out that I supply my company’s independent contractors with 1099-MISC forms, and that I never heard of a company attempting to charge a fee for doing so. I made it very clear that I wanted to cancel our account (that we have not used in nearly two years) and terminate our agreement.

I was sent a merchant account cancellation request form, which I faxed back to Sage Payment Solutions on March 9, 2011. The single-page form included two instances of language which referenced termination fees. I crossed out and initialed both occurrences of that language. Nobody subsequently contacted me with any indication that there was any sort of problem with those revisions, which were an essential part of the document that I signed. A week later, a $600.00 termination fee was debited from our bank account by Sage Payment Solutions. This is a serious matter and a charge that was made, not only without my authorization, but contrary to my specific intention. I called this to the attention of Divina Rutherford and James Cummings in an e-mail on March 16, 2011, clearly expecting to be reimbursed for this fraudulent charge. Other than an e-mail read receipt, there has been no response from either Ms. Rutherford or Mr. Cummings.

I cannot overemphasize my warning to anybody who may be considering doing business with Sage Payment Solutions. Based upon my experience, and the experience of others, you will get burned. Visit the following online resources, and you will discover that there have been instances upon instances of bad experiences with Sage Payment Solutions, with almost all complaints documenting excessive termination fees. Start with the Better Business Bureau, where Sage Payment Solutions has an “F” Rating … the worst possible business rating, based upon “failure to respond to 5 complaints”. I have filed my own complaint with the BBB of Metro Washington DC & Eastern Pennsylvania.

Another website, called “Rate Credit Card Processing Services”, includes 5 customer reviews for Sage Payment Solutions. Four of the five reviews gave the company a “1 star” (lowest possible) rating, citing unauthorized charges, difficulty in closing accounts, automatic renewals, and “early termination” fees ranging from $525.00 to $800.00. Can you imagine the average business attempting to charge a customer a “termination fee” of several hundred dollars because they wanted to take their business elsewhere? This is absurd!

The popular “Complaints Board” website shows 3 recent complaints against Sage Payment Solutions, citing unauthorized charges (including a $550.00 “cancellation fee”) and questionable practices. The complaints against Sage Payment Solutions even go international, with the Indian Consumer Complaints Forum posting a recent complaint for questionable practices.

I sincerely apologize to any clients who were referred to Sage Payment Solutions in early 2009. To anyone else, at the risk of repeating myself, I can only suggest avoiding Sage Payment Solutions under any and all circumstances!

April 2011 Follow-Up: After this post and the filing of a complaint with the appropriate office of the Better Business Bureau, Sage Payment Solutions has refunded the fraudulent charges that I have addressed. I appreciate the refunds; however, it would be nice if the company routinely did the right thing without requiring this type of pressure.

The most successful businesses these days are those that are able to communicate with their customers in real-time or near real-time. Often, one of the accompanying risks is a tendency to hit the “send” or “submit” button too quickly, prior to proofreading or taking a few moments to determine whether a message may be subject to potential misinterpretation or may be less than professional in appearance. When you are communicating with a customer at any level, you are either directly or indirectly representing your business, whether your business is a one-man show or a large corporation. To avoid disaster, always spell-check your work, but never put your total trust in the spell-check process. Spell-checkers will not catch grammatical errors, most punctuation errors, use of an incorrect word or phrase, use of most language which is inappropriate in a professional environment, or the use of language which is basically unclear. An effective message must be crystal clear and not be subject to misinterpretation. Review your message, not from the writer’s perspective, but from the reader’s perspective. You already know what you are trying to say, but what you are trying to say must be accurately conveyed to another person. In a face-to-face setting, gestures and facial expressions can serve to clarify a message and provide instant visual feedback in the event of miscommunication, but an online message does not have that advantage. When you review an unsent message from a reader’s perspective, you may be in for some surprises, leading to close calls that can be avoided.

Equally important to the clarity of your message is the content of your message. There is a difference between conversational language and the written word. Unfortunately, that difference has gotten increasingly blurred in recent years. Many of us are losing our ability to effectively communicate. It has been fifty years, and I would venture to say that we may never again witness political oratory on a par with President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. On the same token, although we are unfortunately no longer a nation of readers, it is impossible to read a newspaper, book or periodical these days and not find grammatical and typographical errors throughout. If standards have slipped for our professional writers and public speakers, where is our inspiration to be found? For a combination of a variety of reasons, our overall communications skills have been seriously degraded, perhaps the result of an overall lack of disciplined learning, compounded by exposure to an “anything is acceptable” use of language that is prevalent in our mass media.

First and foremost, the language of effective business communication should not be confused with the language that has gained popular acceptance in casual conversation. Any intelligent person understands that there is no place for profanity in business communications. In a more perfect world, most people would consider that same profanity to also be an inappropriate component in their conversational language. Unfortunately, familiarity breeds acceptance. Profanity is an obvious example that I have used to make my point; however, I would like to offer a list of overused words, idioms, and phrases that I would like to see banished from our language, in the interest of clarifying communications.

1. “How come” is an idiom that is usually used at the beginning of a longer question. Usually, the word “why” will be a perfect substitute. Beaver Cleaver used the term “how come” in every episode of “Leave It to Beaver”. Miss Canfield and Miss Landers were probably both appalled.
2. “Make sure” is an idiom that is riding a wave of popularity these days, since it is used in almost every unscripted sentence that comes out of the mouth of President Barack Obama or anyone else in the White House. (Even his last State of the Union address, though carefully scripted, contained five uses of “make sure”.) “Make sure” has become the post-election equivalent of the word “change” from back in the campaign. Even proper language that is overused loses its effectiveness.
3. Additional idioms that we could do without are “a lot” (which some people think is actually a word, spelled “alot”), “find out”, “right away”, “take off” (as a synonym for “leave”), “figure out”, “make off with” (as a synonym for “steal”), and “all the time” (almost always an exaggeration.)
4. The phrases “to be honest” and “to tell the truth”, each of which implies that the speaker is otherwise lying.
5. Single words that are used as complete sentences, typically an adverb that is used in response to another person’s statement. The worst offender is “exactly”, generally used in conversation and typically without pronouncing the letter “t”. Other offenders include “whatever”, “precisely”, and “seriously”. I believe that this use of language originated with girls in middle school, then infected the general population.
6. Phrases that are used repeatedly in conversation, as reactions to basically anything. The worst offender by far is “Oh my God!”
7. Words that are used as verbal substitutes for stammering, most notably “like” and “you know”, can only serve to distract and annoy the person who must endure the other end of the conversation.
8. Starting sentences with the word “so” or a conjunction, most typically “and”, or ending a sentence with a preposition.
9. Use of slang in a professional setting. For example, news reporters who use the term “cops” instead of the word “police”.
10. My final complaint (today) is slightly off-topic: The use of unnecessary gestures in spoken conversation. Some people’s hands just seem to be continually in motion. The most annoying gestures are pointing and the “flip phone” sign language symbol that some people think is a necessary accompaniment to any statement involving a telephone.

Some people will argue that times have changed and that language continually evolves. That may be true, but the ability to effectively communicate will only find itself in ever-greater demand. Without basic rules and guidelines, there will ultimately be little distinction between language and noise.

What do you do if you’re Hyundai, and you want to introduce a luxury automobile brand? Nissan did it with Infiniti, Honda did it with Acura, and Toyota did it with Lexus. Every brand with an “economy” perception eventually wants the prestige and profits to be earned in a more upscale market. Rarely does it work in the other direction, where a luxury brand can successfully appeal to the masses without disengaging its core clientele. Hyundai, in the case of the automotive division of South Korea’s industrial behemoth, has a reputation for building highly affordable, stylish, economy cars that have established a growing niche in the U.S. market. What happens when Hyundai decides that it wants to sell a new line of vehicles with an MSRP that starts at $58,000? For starters, it had better do things right.

It is important to get attention and to create a buzz among consumers and, in this case, auto enthusiasts. In a new advertising campaign under the theme of “Rethink Everything”, Hyundai attempts to convince us that its commitment to technology is unsurpassed. The fact that the Equus owner’s manual comes on an iPad, rather than a printed booklet, is an attention-grabber and a brilliant idea, but perhaps the icon of an old-fashioned incandescent light bulb above the headline is a warning for the consumer to look a bit more closely.

How much research did Hyundai undertake before launching the new brand? Good question.

No company with any sense of intelligence will choose a brand name unless it is unique, memorable, and translates internationally. Consider the Chevrolet Nova, produced from the early 1960s into the late 1970s. Whether fact or urban legend, it has been said that the Chevy Nova was a failure in Latin American markets because the name literally translated into “it does not go” in Spanish. Today, when the Web address of a business is essentially its second brand name, it is equally important that a name is not already in use by another company (an invitation for a trademark infringement lawsuit) and that the domain name comprised of that brand name plus “dot com” is readily available. In this case, Hyundai appears to have blown it, big time. Visit equus.comto learn about Equus Products, Inc., a company that, ironically, produces OEM automotive products and is totally unrelated to Hyundai. The fact that equus.com is already in use by another company is only the beginning of Hyundai’s problems when it comes to branding online.

Because of the company’s lack of adequate research, a type-in for equus.com will not bring a potential customer to Hyundai’s Equus website. Big mistake. Type-ins of known products or brand names account for as much as 20% of website traffic. Instead, the URL for Hyundai’s Equus product line is http://equus.hyundai.com/, a subdomain of the Hyundai brand. Could you imagine the only way of reaching Lexus online being a subdomain of Toyota? Worse yet, visit the Flash-driven website, and prepare for Adobe Flash Player 10 to crash and the latest version of Firefox to lock up. Click on a navigational link on this English language website, and (until your browser crashes) you will find that both the mouseovers and the subnavigational links are in Korean. Alternately, there is a folder on the Hyundai Motor America website at http://www.hyundaiusa.com/equus/. This is where it becomes clear that Hyundai is not introducing a new product line, but merely introducing a new model that will be sold within existing Hyundai dealerships … a certain formula for failure. The brand is intended to compete with the BMW 7 Series, Mercedes S-Class, Audi A8, and Lexus LS, among others. How many Mercedes or BMW owners are going to set foot in a Hyundai dealership? Sorry, but the answer is zero. In fairness, this looks like a nice car with some impression features and engineering, but you simply cannot blow the marketing if you are trying to rebrand an economy image and sell a car made in South Korea at a starting price of $58,000. Product reviews? Mixed at best.

Perhaps the most important reviews these days are the customer comments that may be found in social media posts. How is Hyundai doing in this regard? You decide. There is a Hyundai Equus Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/hyundaiequus. That, in itself, is good; however, anybody who knows how Facebook works understands that it is not a vehicle for sales pitches but rather for building relationships with your customers. Visit the Facebook page and you will see the majority of Wall posts are from Hyundai dealers trying to get people into their showrooms, a terribly misguided approach.

It is fortunate that Hyundai is an enormous corporation with money to burn. Every indication that I can see tells me that, from a marketing perspective, they are spending a whole lot of money to shoot themselves in the foot. My advice to my small business readers is to learn from Hyundai’s mistakes.

Lots of fishermen tend to waste time fishing in unproductive waters just because of “the big one” that legend holds was caught and got away 25 years ago. If the legend is true, the time that has passed far exceeds the life expectancy of the fish, even if it wasn’t caught by another angler in the interim. Then, of course, the pond itself could have died, the victim of acid rain, eutrophication, or another type of pollution. The same logic applies to advertising buys. In simple terms, times have changed.

Just as a successful fisherman will spend time fishing in a productive habitat, any advertiser should focus ad buys on media outlets where prospective buyers spend their time. A Harris Interactive survey released in late 2009 found that 80% of U.S. adults are Internet users, and these users spend an average of 13 hours per week online. Of that time, the number of hours on social networking sites (the vast majority of which is on Facebook) now exceeds the amount of time either reading e-mail or conducting the (previously) conventional “search and surf” routine. Another recently released report, the American Time Use Survey issued by the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that the average adult American spends over 19 hours per week watching television. Those numbers are actually in decline, primarily cannibalized by Internet usage (where, ironically, a significant volume of television programming is now being viewed online). With readership levels down, recent statistics have also shown that the average American who reads a daily newspaper spends only 15 minutes per day (but up to 90 minutes on Sundays). Similarly, and with circulations spiraling downward, the average reader spends a scant 45 minutes reading the average magazine. Keep in mind that your target demographics (strongly considering factors such as age) will strongly skew any of the numbers which may be applicable in your particular instance. For example, newspaper readership has been in steady decline across all population segments, but the amount of time spent by younger people reading newspapers is virtually nonexistent. At the same time, it is fair to say that cell phone usage and text messaging is skyrocketing, particularly among those same younger demographics that eschew newspapers.

Comprehensive and current statistics on how we spend our time are not easy to find. If the information was easily accessible, it would probably be outdated as soon as it was published. We can sometimes only work with bits and pieces and get a general feeling for overall trends. For a general feeling with a comical spin and graphic effects, I would suggest a visit to the “Life and Time Spent by the Average Joe Blow” post on the Canadian blog, “Life in the Fast Lane”. (Seriously, check out that blog, run by Fast Lane Transport, Ltd. in Edmonton, Alberta, a freight trucking company serving Canada’s four western provinces.) In general, if you are trying to reach a mass market but cannot afford (or afford to wait for) the Super Bowl, which of the following makes more sense: Online advertising (where 80% of adults are spending 13 hours per week) or direct mail (where we each probably spend an average of 3 minutes per day deciding what gets a second glance and what goes into the recycling bin unopened)? Advertising over the years has relied upon the type of inferential data which has only proven to be slightly better than this type of generalization. Have you ever noticed how many erectile dysfunction commercials have text that reads, “See our ad in Golf Magazine”? The presumption, no doubt correct and based upon expensive market research, is that the demographics of the two markets overlap. With the advent of social media, where users volunteer and share a wealth of demographic information, we now have access to the type of real data which allows target marketing to go beyond inference and finally live up to its real name.

Advertising generally falls into one of two major categories: Advertising which is intended to fulfill an existing demand, and advertising which is intended to create a demand. Brand advertising is a textbook example of the latter, accounting for 80% of the two-way split. Ideally, your message should be designed to either reach out to consumers who are willing to embrace a new or improved product or service (now most typically as the result of viral marketing and social networking), or effectively introduce yourself to consumers who are already sold on your product or service but are unfamiliar with your company or brand name. When using social networking as a viral marketing tool, it is important for an advertiser to remember that they not be controlling the conversation but simply joining the conversation. Although it may seem contrary to the old rules of the game, it is best to sit back and allow the satisfied users of your product or service to be your most effective spokespersons.

Once you find the right pond, you will be pleased to discover that it is loaded with fish, and those fish are on a feeding frenzy!

In the course of building websites for our clients, we are always trying to build sites that are graphically stimulating and meet the standards of the current crop of browsers. Probably the biggest challenge has been keeping up with the evolution of Internet Explorer in recent years, more standards compliant than ever in the latest version, Internet Explorer 8. Nonetheless, we have typically found ourselves testing for Internet Explorer and “everything else”. The current browsers used for testing on my computer are Internet Explorer 8.0.7600.16385, Firefox 3.6.7 (just updated last night), Google Chrome 5.0.375.99, Opera 10.6.0 (3445), and Safari 5.0 (7533.16), all running under Windows 7 Pro.

I am amazed at how often I will look at somebody’s website, either homemade or built by a careless webmaster or simply not updated to meet current standards, and think, “This business has no idea what their site looks like in Internet Explorer 8 (or, conversely, Firefox).” Some people use Firefox and have never viewed their site in Internet Explorer, or use an older version of Internet Explorer and have never seen their site in Internet Explorer 8. Others might be running Macs and have not seen how their site appears to the vast majority of visitors on the Windows platform. In other instances, sites have been built to resize to a percentage of available pixel width on the viewer’s monitor … a true formula for disaster, with text and graphics reflowing out of control. In many cases, there would be some rude awakenings. I wonder if people know how their sites appear on a large monitor with a high screen resolution, and you cannot afford to ignore visitors to your site running on a variety of other platforms, from Linux to iPhones.

It is time for a reality check. Using one of our high traffic website’s Google Analytics statistics for the past 30 days, 71.35% of visitors are using Internet Explorer, 16.11% are using Firefox, 7.74% are using Safari, 3.85% are using Chrome, and 0.16% are using Opera, but that is only half of the story. What we have discovered is that, in an attempt to build sites that are compatible with the latest browser versions, without careful testing, it is easy to have a site that looks fine in Internet Explorer 8, but looks bad in Internet Explorer 7 and even worse in Internet Explorer 6. Unlike Firefox, which goes out of its way to encourage users to quickly and easily update to the latest release, many users are running older versions of Internet Explorer, despite the serious security implications involved. Using the same site’s Google Analytics stats, Internet Explorer users break down as follows: 65.88% are using Internet Explorer 8, 24.27% are using Internet Explorer 7, and 9.85% are still using Internet Explorer 6!

If your site looks gorgeous on your monitor, I would suggest that you do not sit back on your laurels and presume that everyone else is enjoying the same experience. You need to do some testing and, if necessary, some reverse engineering in order to insure backward compatibility with older browsers. Keep in mind that, under our statistics, approximately 25% of current visitors to your site are likely to be using an OLD version of Internet Explorer … old versions that may not support such commonly used features as layers and transparency.

If you do not have the benefit of a computer with older browsers installed on a test platform, there are some free online tools that will help you to identify browser compatibility problems. I recommend the following:
Browser Shots will allow you to generate screen shots of any URL in your choices from over 75 browser variations on the Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms.
http://browsershots.org/
IE NetRenderer is a somewhat faster and more streamlined tool that will allow you to check a page in Internet Explorer 8, 7, 6 or 5.5. It will allow you to quickly identify any problems.
http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/

Once you have identified problems, then you can ask your webmaster to program the necessary fixes. If your webmaster does not know how to make the necessary programming changes (or just brushes you off by suggesting that you convert your site to run under a content management system), it may be time to consider a change.

Just in case there were any doubts about the validity of my previous post, here is a current real-world example in evidence. One of our clients is a tea merchant who owns the trademark to Hu-Kwa tea. They have owned the hu-kwa.com domain name for quite some time now. Last week, I was contacted by two companies within an hour, each offering to sell me hukwa.com (without the hyphen), one using multiple e-mails. The first was a company called Flex Media / Flex Media Domains, which sent me an e-mail which included a “Priority Sales” hyperlink. This outfit is supposedly located in Hollywood, Florida. The second contact came in the form of three e-mails from InTrust Domains / Domain Names International / eTraffic Services, an outfit supposedly located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, sending me what they called a “Priority Domain Availability Notice. According to their website, they “currently manage a portfolio of approximately 10,000 domains, with about 70 new domains added each day.” I did a whois lookup at the time, and it very suspiciously showed nothing. I replied to this second company via e-mail, asking them for a price and the registration history (no reply, of course), although their e-mail directed me to a form where I could “express my interest”. I didn’t use the form with either of these outfits. Yesterday, I was contacted again, with a follow-up offer to sell me the “now available” hukwa.com. This time I clicked on the form, out of curiosity. It said that the price would be $397.00 and had a payment form.

I just did another whois lookup. Guess what? The company that contacted me yesterday registered the domain name YESTERDAY. I am guessing that happened immediately upon my clicking on their link! Either they are also “tasting” for 5 days, or – once they’ve had somebody express interest – they actually will keep the domain for a year. The price is $397.00 for a domain that they bought yesterday for about $6.00 (and can probably get refunded under a grace period).

Here is the current whois lookup information for the domain:
Domain Name: HUKWA.COM
Created On: 08-JUN-2010
Last Updated On: 08-JUN-2010
Expiration Date: 08-JUN-2011
Sponsoring Registrar: THREADSHARE.COM, INC
Status: ok
Registrant Name: Domain Admin
Registrant Organization: InTrust Domain Names
Registrant Street1: 4845A Pearl East Circle
Registrant City: Boulder
Registrant State/Province: CO
Registrant Postal Code: 80301
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: (1)(866) 582-2599
Registrant Email: domain@itdomainnames.net
Tech Email: domain@itdomainnames.net
Name Server: CALL.303-800-0310.COM
Name Server: FOR-SALE-AT.INTRUSTDOMAINS.COM

Check out the “website” of their registrar: http://threadshare.com/
Does this look like the site of a legitimate registrar? Not in my mind.

Here is the whois lookup for ThreadShare.com:
AboutUs: threadshare.com
Registration Service Provided By: Thought Convergence
Contact: domains@thoughtconvergence.com
Domain name: threadshare.com
Registrant Contact:
Thought Convergence, Inc.
Domain Administrator ()
11300 W. Olympic Boulevard
Suite 900
Los Angeles, CA 90064
US

ThoughtConvergence.com is located at the same address in Los Angeles.

Totally legal. Totally unethical. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?

For quite some time now, I have had a suspicious feeling that one of my increasingly frequent observations was far beyond a matter of coincidence. Have you ever performed a whois lookup to check on the availability of a domain name, confirmed that it was available, but delayed registration of the domain until a later time? Sometimes it seems reasonable to presume that a domain name might be so obscure and highly personalized that there would be no chance that anyone else might consider registering that same name for years, if ever. Well, it turns out that this would be a bad presumption because in far too many instances that domain name would be lost moments later. You will have been the victim of a practice known as Domain Tasting or Domain Front Running.

I had a small business owner call me on May 24, 2010. She said that her son was interested in having a website built for his construction business. She said that a friend had checked and that the domain was available on May 20, 2010. It was an obscure, three-word domain name. I double-checked by performing a new whois lookup, and I discovered that the domain had been registered on May 20, 2010 … apparantly moments after the original whois availability search. What is happening? More importantly, how and why is it happening?

It turns out that the practice is not new. A post by the Daily Domainer back in February of 2007 generated 191 responses, most of which pointed an accusatory finger at GoDaddy. Other blog posts have singled out Network Solutions for engaging in this practice. Together, these are two of the biggest names in the domain name registration industry.

Here is how it works: It seems that many unscrupulous registrars who provide whois lookup services (which are, in fact, provided by virtually every registrar) are selling the domain search data to domain tasting outfits which, in turn, register the domain name with the registrar. Over the next few days, they test (or “taste”) the domain to see if it generates any significant amount of traffic. If it does generate traffic, they will make money from clicks on their bogus landing page. If the new domain does not generate traffic, it might be turned in for a refund under the 5 day “grace” policy of some registrars. Everybody wins, except you lose.

In the old days, Cybersquatting was a common practice, where unsavory characters would register domain names based upon legitimate small business names or product names, with the intention of then selling the names at an enormous profit margin. Domain tasters, on the other hand, cannot be bothered with selling domain names because they are more interested in earning millions of dollars, a nickel or a dime at a time. The Washington Post published an exposé of this practice, titled “Entrepreneurs Profit From Free Web Names” back in 2007. If you are not familiar with the practice, old news is still news.

How to you protect yourself?

• Do not perform a whois query – anywhere – unless you are immediately prepared to register the domain name. This cannot be overemphasized.
• Do not ever “search” for domain availability using Address Bar Guessing. There are ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) who have been found to engage in the practice of selling Non-eXistent Domain (NXD) Data to domainers.
• If you have just “lost” a domain name that you failed to register, go back to look for it in 5 days.

Further reading:
http://blog.domaintools.com/2008/01/google-to-kill-domain-tasting/
http://www.domainnamenews.com/featured/domain-registrar-network-solutions-front-running-on-whois-searches/1359
http://www.billhartzer.com/pages/network-solutions-registering-domains-after-availability-lookup/
http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/03/stealing-domain-name-research/
http://blog.domaintools.com/2008/01/network-solutions-steals-domain-ideas-confirmed/
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Whois-Hijacking-My-Domain-Research/
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Bad-Taste-Another-Way-ICANN-Blew-Domain-Registration/
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/10/icann-probing-insider-trading-allegations-with-domain-name-registrations.ars

Some of us are old enough to remember the days when the biggest map publishers were the oil companies, from Esso to Chevron to Atlantic to Shell. Times have changed. Gasoline now contains ethanol instead of lead, and those maps are only found in the “Collectibles” category on eBay. Some of the biggest map publishers are now MapQuest, Yahoo, and Google. Until very recently, when you needed a map to appear on your website, the challenges could be significant. Maps were time-consuming and costly to produce, and static maps had to be accompanied by a laundry list of travel directions from various points of origin.

The biggest problem with the first generation of online mapping (most notably MapQuest) was that the locations were often incorrect, particularly if your business was in a remote location or did not have a precise street address. It is no surprise that many websites still warn visitors not to use online mapping services for travel directions. With the advent of both nationwide 911 standards and GPS coordinates, many of those early issues have either been addressed or are easy to correct. In some instances, online mapping software might still be inappropriate for your particular business. For example, if you run a campground and the service insists upon sending travelers over routes that include covered bridges or steep grades that are either impossible to cross or dangerous to navigate with a large RV, online mapping may not be right for you. In fact, the same problems might occur when drivers use their vehicles’ GPS navigation systems. These are exceptions that will probably still mandate the use of carefully written travel directions and custom-built static maps.

For the rest of us, Google has provided a solution in the form of Google Maps. Google Maps are fully customizable to fit any page layout, and users can pan, zoom in or out, and generate travel directions directly from any point of origin to your door. Better yet, Google will allow you to make changes to your Google Maps listing, including the addition of your Web address, keywords, a 200 word description … even up to 10 photos from your website. Best of all, they make the process simple. Here are step-by-step instructions:

First, go to the Google Maps website: http://maps.google.com/. (You can also simply go to Google, do a search, then choose the “Maps” option at the top of the page.) Either way, enter the name of your business in the search box. Hopefully, it will appear as the sole entry in the search results. In rare instances, Google Maps may not be aware of your business, in which case you might try entering your exact street address. (If more than one listing appears for your business, you can request removal of any duplicates.) Click on the resulting link to go to your map, then click on the “edit” and “claim your business” links in the information balloon which overlays your map. Choose the “edit my business information” option, then click “continue”. (Alternately, you can click on the “more info” link next to your business in the Search Results frame on the left, then choose the “Add or edit your business” link.) On this next page, you can correct your marker location or any of your listing information. You will be able to add your Web address, e-mail address, alternate phone numbers, and more … including a 200 character description of your business. On subsequent pages, you can add your business hours, types of payment that you accept, up to 10 photos, even a link to a YouTube video or an online coupon … all for free! (Later, you can also ask satisfied customers to go to this page, click on the “write a review” link, and write favorable reviews that will help to persuade new customers to come your way.) Once you are done making your additions and corrections, ask for a telephone validation, choose the “call me now” option, and the process will be complete as soon as you type the assigned 4-digit PIN number into your telephone keypad when the automated phone call arrives seconds later. Most changes will appear within only minutes or hours, although significant corrections to the location of your business (the marker on the map) will be confirmed by a human editor and take longer to implement.

Now that you have enhanced your listing (and made any necessary corrections), you are ready to add this map functionality to your website. This process is slightly more complex. If you are uncomfortable with HTML or do not directly maintain your website yourself, replacing the existing map on your website with this code should be easy enough for your webmaster to implement in less than ten minutes. Go back to your Google Maps listing, then choose the “Link to this page” option in the upper right of the page, then choose the “Customize and preview embedded map” option. Choose the “Custom Map Size” option, and enter the width and height (in pixels) that will best fit your page layout. (If this seems too complex to you, you can always choose one of the “Small”, “Medium”, or “Large” preset options.) Copy and paste the resulting HTML into the location on your website’s travel directions page where you would like the map to appear. (If you would like to make the map look a bit cleaner on your page, I would suggest deleting the HTML after the </iframe> closing tag.) That’s all there is to it!

Compare this professional, highly interactive map that now appears on your website with the hand-drawn, confusing map that you might have been using before (and that your competitors may still be using on their websites). Now go back to your Google Maps listing, click on the “more info” link, and see the enhancements that you’ve made, fully aware the similar enhancements probably do not appear alongside of your competitors’ listings because they will not have taken the time to follow these simple steps. The entire process will take very little time, probably less than 20 minutes. As a bonus, keep in mind that your Google Maps results page will also represent one more inbound link to your website, enhancing your site’s search engine ranking!

This article was originally written in August 2008 for Northeast In-Sites, the newsletter of the Northeast Campground Association. It was later reprinted in Woodall’s Campground Management.

An online version of a seminar which I presented back in 2008 at the 44th Annual Northeast Conference On Camping, in Springfield, Massachusetts has been frequently referenced on other blogs. In particular, there are many links to a sample model release / waiver form that I have made available. The following is an excerpt from that seminar that covers the topics of Releases, Rights Management, and Legal Issues involving photography of guests at a campground, resort, tourist attraction, theme park, ski area or other similar place of business. Bear in mind that I am not a lawyer and that none of the information presented herein should be considered to be legal advice.

We are living in a society that is obsessed with litigation. We are also living in a society where our rights to personal privacy are under constant attack. When it comes to advertising photography, my recommendation is that you do your best to protect both your interests and the rights of your guests. Never, under any circumstances, take a photograph of anybody without their advance knowledge or, in the instance of a once in a lifetime candid photo opportunity, by getting their express permission immediately afterward. Always remember that you are taking photographs, not snapshots.

Nobody plans a vacation at a campground (or anywhere else) with either the intention or expectation of becoming a model. On the other hand, over 99% of your guests will be thrilled to be a part of a photo shoot and will go out of their way to be cooperative. Nonetheless, it is important that you at least get people’s implied, if not their signed, consent. I am pleased to provide you with a model waiver template which you are free to use; however, it is important to presume that no waiver or release will ever hold up in court. The rights of the individual will always prevail. The primary purpose of a release is to weed out potential problems from that one person in a thousand who would like to get rich quick and own your business, with the help of his attorney brother-in-law.

If a release is so powerless, when and why should it be used? In a public setting, where nobody is being held up to ridicule, I have always followed two rules:

1. If there are fewer than 7 people in a photo, get them each to sign a release.

2. If there are more than 7 people in a photo, but anybody is prominently featured in the center or foreground, get signed releases.

A third rule might be to always get signed releases for any children whom you photograph, remembering that only a parent of a minor has the legal authority to act in this manner.

If you take a photograph and a person balks about signing the release, refuses to sign the release, jokes about compensation or a lawsuit, or the subject is a minor who is not accompanied by a parent, make a note to not only not use the photo but to destroy the photo in order to prevent it from ever being used unintentionally or without your knowledge (but, as the photographer, with your ultimate responsibility). Should you hire a photographer to take photos on your behalf, you will share any liability which results from that photographer’s failure to exercise due diligence in obtaining a release.

Some resorts incorporate a blanket release into their registration agreement; however, these are much less likely to hold water in court than a signed release (which is already as water-tight as a colander) and are perhaps little better than no release at all.

Again, if you are hiring a photographer, you should be aware of precisely what it is that you are purchasing. As with stock photography, you need to know what rights are being conveyed. Just as certainly as stock photography will always require payment of a fee, no reputable photographer will ever perform what is legally defined as “work for hire”. You will not be purchasing the actual photographs (which is essentially virtual property anyway now that almost all photography is digital) but the rights to use those photographs. If there are any restrictions on their use, aside from actual ownership itself, be sure to get those limitations defined in advance.

Read the entire online seminar by clicking here.

In short, the answer is no.

I was one of four Web developers in a round-table session on broad-ranging Internet topics, presented at a trade association conference in New York this past weekend. In response to an audience question, one of my associates suggested that a longer-term domain name registration played a role in determining a site’s search engine ranking. The rationalization was based upon a presumption that a domain name registered or renewed for single-year terms was an indication of a “fly by night” business. Since it is always our policy to renew our clients’ domains (and our own domains) on a one-year basis, I had to take exception and question the validity of this statement.

Upon my return, I did a bit of online research, and this served to confirm that any suggestion that a longer-term domain name registration has an impact upon a site’s search engine ranking is total nonsense. Apparently this is a piece of misinformation that has been concocted and disseminated by GoDaddy(and often innocently passed along as “fact” by otherwise well-intentioned companies who use GoDaddy as their registrar of choice), in an effort to get people to sign up with them for longer terms. Long-term registrations are in any registrar’s interest because they reduce “churn”, the likelihood of a registrant to transfer to another registrar … either intentionally or as the result of being slammed by an unscrupulous registrar such as Domain Registry of America.

With some registrars, one must be very careful and wary about long-term registrations because they may be, in fact, banking your money (for 10 years, for example), while actually registering your domain on a year-by-year basis, essentially preventing you from transferring your domain to another registrar without suffering a financial loss and the loss of what you presumed was the remaining length of your registration. Do a whois lookup to check. The 10-year registration that you thought covered you through 2018 may, in fact, only be covering you on a year-by-year basis until 2018. In other words, if you transferred now, you may be in for the rude awakening that your domain has only been registered or renewed through 2010. Fortunately, this unscrupulous practice is quite rare.

In summary, there is NO reason to register a domain, or to renew a domain, for more than one year at a time, unless the discount for doing so presents a sufficient incentive in itself. According to Google itself, there is no validity to this recommendation.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=00acf87986f79dfa&hl=en
http://www.seoxp.net/?p=384

Domain authority, on the other hand, does play a role in determining search engine ranking. Domain authority is a measurement of the accumulated length of time that a domain name has been registered, but it has nothing to do with the term of registration (or renewal) itself. Domain authority is directly related to the length of time that a website has been in existence and is part of the explanation for why older, established websites often appear higher in search results than newer websites that are otherwise superior in every respect.

Here are a few additional sources of reference:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/domain_names/3334950.htm
http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/does-registering-your-domain-for-longer.php

My advice is to always question statements of this nature claim to present tips that appear to be a bit far-fetched, in this case the SEO equivalent of urban legends. Take the time to do a search, and discover the truth.