The great spam war of the early 21st century
And so it was in 2009 that a brief hiatus, or rather a stalemate, befell the opposing sides. Despite the cascading billions of spam mail flooding the internet and swallowing vast terabytes of bandwidth - armies of drone zombie computers silently doing the bidding of distant masters scattered across the globe - Gmail and Thunderbird kept most of it at bay.
On any given morning, as email inboxes began receiving their daily flood of solicitations for Viagra, Cialis and various love potions, phony UPS delivery notices, inexpensive designer watches, pirated software, sly attempts to redirect traffic to malicious software, “phishing” expeditions, pretend newsletters and fraudulent notices from banks, communication supposedly from the FDIC, greeting cards from “family,” contest winner announcements, airline specials, communication credited to the IRS about refunds or unpaid taxes, regulated pharmaceuticals, and so on, just as quickly the spam filters shunted the flood into segregated “junk” and “spam” folders where their contents lay dormant and inactive.
As in any war, there were casualties, of course. In some cases, it was those sorry few who too old or vulnerable or inexperienced to fully understand the battle being waged would click on links within these spam mails and set loose the monster to feed on their own computer and join the ranks of zombies. And the web backbone itself, open to any and all emails legitimate or not, suffered as did the companies enlisted to support it. Routers and servers, jammed and pushed beyond their limits of delivery timed out, clogged and had to be re-booted. New equipment designed to handle greater capacity was mobilized, at great expense.
But the heart of the battle is not fought online, but in the mind of spam programmers. Even as the stalemate served to inoculate the population from the worst savagery of battle, plans were being drawn to escalate the conflict and break through the spam defenses. At one time, spam used phony company names, but now what seemed like individuals were the sender. As the filters became smarter, even this “personal” looking spam mail was detected and removed. For a short time image files fooled the filters, but this tactic did not succeed for long. A thrust here, and parry there, the duel continued.
And then, all of a sudden, the unthinkable occurred. The filters, having gained what could be called primitive intelligence, began to flood the spammers with their own spam mail. A pitched battle ensued in which the zombies and their masters found themselves on the receiving end of their own spam. A great circle of karmic retribution ensued, which though partly paralyzing the internet for months, finally revealed the identities of compromised machines and shut them down. A great silence cast a blanket of peace over the web.
Reports of email loneliness were reported on CNN. Despite the seeming inconvenience, spam had been of comfort to many, and nothing had yet arisen to replace it. So it was that “spamusic” arrived, a gentle symphony of pure sound selling nothing. This was followed quickly by “spart,” “spoetry” and “spamovels;” a huge burst of free creativity filled the vacuum on what had been the battlefield of spam war.
And so it remained until 2012, when dramatic global events changed web and world history forever.
Larry Barnett
Smart Phone Web Confusion
The proliferation of web-ready smart phones has created a looming challenge for developers who want to create smart phone compatible websites. While Blackberry and iPhone display mobile sites fairly consistently, other phones, like LG do not. The browsers used on smart phones vary, and the ways in which they display pages can be problematic. We await the arrival of the new Droid based phones, and hope the technology does not spread the confusion further.
Without question, web-ready smart phones are transformational. We are seeing a consistent 5% increase in web traffic to our client's websites due simply to the creation of a compatible mobile site. This is a clear indication that an increasing number of people are using their phones to surf the web, and it is a particularly important fact for businesses that serve people on the go. When people are traveling, a laptop is often not available, and the smart phone becomes the communication and research hub while on the road. The instant dial-up function enables making reservations for dinner or a spa treatment. We've even synched up Open Table reservation functionality through the phone sites, retaining the lower discounted price for the service by integrating functionality into the mobile site.
You can see examples of smart phone site design options at our website: www.epiphanet.com/services#iphone
Larry Barnett
The Health Problems of a Website
Over the years I have launched many websites. My favorite part is watching the statistics when that thin blue line begins to pulse like a line on a EKG monitor. The anticipation relieved as your website is no longer flat-lining, your website now shows a steady heartbeat as each user flows in.
I think relating a website to the human body is very fitting. None of the parts really matter without a steady flow of healthy website users to feed the body. This may seem like common sense but let me diagnose the web health problems that affect the website user: Advertisements, Security and Over Regulation.
Displaying advertisements on your site is not always toxic. I also enjoy the idea of earning money as my website sleeps. 
Beware: Ads are like junk food - eat in moderation. The average website user will tolerate one or two modestly placed ads per page. Avoid ads that will interrupt or cover your content; it will go straight to your thighs! Pop up ads? That is a heart attack waiting to happen.
Of course if your website users are healthy enough you can afford some extra calories as many larger established sites enjoy. Just keep your diet balanced between the amount of website users and the obtrusiveness of your ads.
Website security is the endless battle between virus and immune system. Most security measures are very much a necessity, I won't argue that, although some precautions applied to a site are like a hypochondriac with a stolen prescription pad.
The most commonly used prescription is CAPTCHA, the hard to read letters in an image used to make sure you're not a robot. This system is great for preventing most of the viruses from taking over and filling up your site with spam, but this system is also great at annoying and clotting your website users. I'd rather spend time as a website administrator cleaning up the spam then risk losing blood, but if it does become a full time job then by all means write that prescription!
Over regulation is the leading cause of website death. It is cancer. Let's say your website has a great service which will attract many users. The absolutely wrong thing to do is to require the user to fill out a lengthy registration form to use it. Treat your website users with care and only make requests when it is necessary. Remember the only reason they are visiting is because of the service your website provides. They owe you nothing.
Always remember: Your website user is the life's blood of your website. Be your own site doctor; analyze and treat these web health problems or your site may end up in the emergency room!
Kyle Robinson Young
Search Engine Irony
I was pulling together some information today for a client's Adword program, and happened across a dandy bit of irony. Appearing in the list of Adwords on Google was an Adword for...Bing! Yes, Microsoft is using Google to advertise its own new search engine! This is (a) the ultimate compliment, or (b) the height of irony, perhaps both. In actuality, Bing will most probably bring some added attention by Google to its own offering and features; they've had the field to themselves for so long the folks at Google may have forgotten what real competition looks like. Not that FireFox is bad, but MS has tons of cash and is clearly throwing plenty into Bing, including a mass-media push.
The new Google Adwords interface is not without its bugs and problems. The Bing Adwords interface is actually a real pain to use. It's not intuitive at all, and getting the hang of perfectly ordinary activities takes too much time. It in most respects replicates Google's functionality, but it's clunky. Over time, it may improve. I'm testing ads to compare cost per click and may move more activity to Bing if the cost per click is lower, after all, "all clicks are equal." Unless, that is, they are made by a competitor. So the question arises, will Google advocates or MS haters click on the Bing ads on Google? Oh, the irony.
The great SEO rip-off
I recently reviewed an SEO proposal one of our clients had received and was reminded of how wretched and unscrupulous some web-related service purveyors are. This particular proposal was for $3,500 per month, or over $40,000 per year. The specifics of the proposal were vague, of course, and buried within a lengthy, technical-sounding discourse that made it appear that SEO work requires a PhD. in computer science.
Only the most elaborate and complicated websites would could support a strategy of spending $40,000 on SEO; the ranking and placement algorithms used by Google and Yahoo simply don’t change that much or that often. Moreover, important factors such as incoming links from highly ranked websites are beyond the control of an SEO contractor, and once properly named and formatted, a page title does not need to be changed often.
Despite the basic simplicity of most SEO work, so-called “specialists” continue to play upon ignorance in the marketplace and prey upon unsuspecting businesses that think SEO is rocket science. They make SEO sound complicated and arcane and charge exorbitant monthly fees for work that takes generally only a few hours time. They make work where there is none and produce billings based upon it. Most of the time is spent formatting custom reports that do nothing more than what’s available for free through Google Analytics and other web tracking tools. Such near-fraud is profitable to be sure, but also is highly unethical. Such behavior darkens the reputation of all legitimate web service companies and increases the suspicion of customers who could really use some SEO work.
When Epiphanet is asked for a quote for SEO, we bill for a review of the website and issue a set of recommendations; this is usually one to three hours of work. As part of that, we provide a quote for the implementation of the recommendations, which varies with the complexity and size of a website. For the client project noted above, our honest quote was less than one-tenth of that of the other company. Go figure!
Larry Barnett
Welcome to the Epiphanet Blog!
Hi Everyone! Our team is excited to begin sharing some helpful and interesting knowledge about the web. So please bear with us as we get this blog rolling.
Kyle Robinson Young