So what do you do? The answer lies in the following infographic by Kissmetrics:

Source: How to Get More Likes on Facebook – Infographic

The key to successful social media marketing is to work smarter, not harder. Consider how you’ve been sharing information in the past—are you posting and sharing quality bits of information your followers find interesting? Do you post at a time when you know your followers will be paying attention to you? If your strategy hasn’t been working or you’re not seeing the results you hoped to see, it’s time to try something new. But, like the infographic says, always remember to do what’s right for you and your brand, whatever that may be.

The post Infographic: How to Get More Likes on Facebook appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

Welcome to part 2 of our link building interview with thought leaders in the SEO industry. This week, we’ll be featuring Julie Joyce of Link Fish Media. As one of the faces behind SEO Chicks, the self-proclaimed SEO blog with attitude, Julie brings an interesting perspective to the future of link building strategies. As a predominantly male industry, blogs and forums often lack the opinions and voice of women in SEO, so I thought it especially important to get a woman’s view on link building. If you want to read more from Julie, she’s a regular contributor to Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch.

If you missed our first interview with Jon Cooper from Point Blank SEO, be sure to read that here, and stay on the lookout for our last interview with Aaron Wall from SEO Book.

Julie Joyce is the owner of Link Fish Media, a link building company specializing in creating custom campaigns. In addition, she is the co-founder of the SEO Chicks and contributes to the link columns on Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land. You can follow Julie Joyce on Twitter.

1. If there was one link building strategy you wish would fall off the face of the earth, what would it be?

Link dropping in comments and forums is my least favorite tactic. I know there are times when it’s relevant but so many sites seem to do nothing more than that, and it’s very poorly done, especially when it’s “thanks your good site is valuable and more! www.myirrelevantlinkhere.com”

2. Conversely, which link building strategy do you wish more people would employ?

Well, I do think there are some amazing links that you can pay for (cough) so while I’d like to say “buy more good links” I realize that sounds like bad advice, so I’ll go with simple diversification. I don’t think enough people realize how bad it is to rely on Google 100%. They need to be building their presence in as many places as possible so that if Google does screw them, they still have something to fall back on.

3. What link building strategy do you believe Google’s next update will hit the hardest?

I’m very worried about low-end and irrelevant guest posts actually. I’ve seen sites that do nothing but procure crappy guest posts on sites that exist only to host those posts it seems, and I can’t imagine that’s going to continue to work well.

4. What are your thoughts on directory submissions and social bookmarking as a link building strategy? Is it worth the time?

I don’t do any of that, but I know plenty of people who still use directory submissions, and it works well for them. I think there are still some good directories around but you have to look at them with a more critical eye than you did a year ago in my opinion. Social bookmarking isn’t anything I’ve done for clients, and I have no plans to start. I think it’s potentially good, but the effort involved in doing it well, like anything else, would probably not be worth it for me.

5. What are your thoughts on the link disavow tool?

I like the idea, but that’s it. I do know of situations where it seemed like it was the only thing that could help, but the idea of giving that kind of information to Google really bothers me. Any idiot can look at a list of their links and slap it into a disavow file without having a clue about whether those sites are decent or not.

6. What are your 3 favorite tools for outreach?

A timely question considering I had my Buzzstream epiphany yesterday! That is a majorly amazing tool, and I’m annoyed with myself for not digging into it as much as I have recently. It’s just really, really well done. I tend to be a bit of a Luddite when it comes to outreach tools though, so I don’t usually use them. I have found some amazing contacts through Twitter and Google+, so I’d list them as number 2 and 3.

7. What’s the most creative way you’ve ever gotten a link?

Writing a post about how we should build more links by interviewing people.

8. What resources would you recommend those new to link building read?

I’d set up alerts for Debra Mastaler and Rae Hoffman, first of all. Both of them consistently write stuff that isn’t full of fluff and that just makes sense. Obviously I’m partial to the link building columns at Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch, but I also think there’s a lot of value to be had by reading anything related to marketing. The beauty of link building is that you can draw ideas for it from everything you read.

9. Do you consider link building and content marketing to be synonymous? Why or why not?

Not really. Link building is building links, whether it’s through asking for them, paying for them, or just getting them. The goal is to get a link. With content marketing, I think there are different motivations. You want to attract new readers or customers, retain existing ones, keep your site looking fresh so Google likes you, etc…similar to link building in that the goal “should” be to provide value to users, but I think they’re a bit different definitely.

10. What’s an example of really superb content you’ve come across recently? What drew you to it?

Hugo Guzman wrote a piece that wasn’t about SEO but was about his nephew (http://www.hugoguzman.com/2013/04/finding-real-answers-to-the-hard-questions/). Hugo’s writing is top notch anyway, but the piece is about how his nephew Ralphy has certain physical and mental challenges and Ralphy is explaining to Hugo how much he likes to help kids who are less fortunate than he is. I mean really…that’s amazing stuff and it’s amazing to me because of all the people I’ve known who are just like Ralphy. I’ve been whining about a broken dryer and how my arms hurt from yoga. That post was a nice slap in the face, and while I do try my best to appreciate how good things are for me in general, I also let myself get caught up in a lot of whining. This piece is something I’ve bookmarked, sent to people, and reread a dozen times because it means something. In this industry, we read a lot of bullshit and a lot of “how to make more money” and we need more pieces like this one.

11. What’s one thing you’re surprised most SEOs don’t know/think they know?

How to check a robots.txt file to make sure it’s not blocking your entire site.

*Editor’s Note: Simply add “/robots.txt” to the end of your URL. If it looks like this, your whole site is blocked. You can learn more about robots.txt here.

12. What’s your favorite sitcom, and why is it Friends?

My favorite sitcom is Fawlty Towers. It’s a testament to my husband that he still pretends to be excited when I want to watch those episodes that I’ve been watching over and over and over since I was 10. Somehow Basil Fawlty never gets unfunny to me.

A special thanks to Julie Joyce for participating! Be sure to check back with us for our last link building interview with Aaron Wall of SEO Book.

What are some of your thoughts on Julie’s answers? Join the conversation below!

The post Link Building Interview Part 2 appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

Facebook Adds Hashtag Functionality to Statuses

Anyone who has ever used Twitter, Google+, Instagram, or Pinterest knows about hashtags. These searchable terms set off by (what was formerly known as) the pound key (#) allow users to stay connected to conversations surrounding a single topic.

Hashtags are great for having chats with users who would otherwise not be connected—all anyone wanting to join the chat would have to do is throw in the designated hashtag to have their message included. They’re also great for finding content or comments about any given topic.

Users can now click on and search for hashtag conversations and trends on Facebook.

So now Facebook is jumping on the social media bandwagon and implementing them into public conversations, according to their blog announcement. Users will be able to click on any Facebook hashtags they see in addition to being able to search for a particular hashtag, a process very similar to other social media sites.

How This Changes Everything

Until yesterday, Facebook was a lone ranger when it came to how users are able to connect to each other. From the beginning, Facebook has relied on real connections—you can only see content and updates from the people and pages you chose to connect to by liking or friending them.

Now, however, users will be able to find other people based on what hashtag they include in their status updates. You’ll be able to talk to people you’re not directly connected to, changing Facebook into a social media site that no longer solely relies on the connections you make with the people and companies you choose to follow. Of course, you’ll still be able to control who sees your posts—with or without hashtags—and you still directly control the content that shows up in your personal news feed. But the added element of searchable conversations means a complete expansion of how people connect, converse, and share content on Facebook.

It also means marketers need to step up their game. The added element of Facebook hashtags here means another layer of researching, creating, and tracking your marketing efforts. No longer can you simply “post and pray” that your content will reach the people you want to reach. But this also means that brand pages in particular might not have to rely as much on paid advertising anymore—if their content picks up within a Facebook hashtag trend, that content could go viral in a whole new way and to a whole new audience.

At this point, it remains to be seen what kind of analytics, if any, will be available to track how effective certain hashtags are over others when posted in status updates. I’m sure that, as the update ages, Facebook and other third-party developers will be coming out with tools and advice for the eager social media managers out there (myself being one of them).

Twitter Debuts Tweet Performance Analytics for All Users

If the Facebook update wasn’t enough excitement for you, Twitter also announced a new update to their site—analytics for all!

Like their ads function, Twitter analytics have been available previously, but only to certain business customers looking for robust ad analytics. As of June 13, however, this feature is now available to anyone and everyone who has a Twitter account. All you have to do is log in with your or your desired Twitter account at the Twitter ads dashboard and roll over to the new Analytics tab to see your chart.

Click image to enlarge.

In your new chart, you’ll notice several columns, one of which lists the Tweets you’ve sent out with data about how many people have clicked the link (if any) contained in your message. The other columns track your social impact, including how many people retweeted, favorited, or replied to that particular Tweet. This is great for anyone, not just marketers, who want to calculate the inherent value of their efforts on Twitter.

(And my favorite part of the update allows you to choose to see your top-ranked Tweets in order of awesomeness—in this view, you can pat yourself on the back for all your hard work!)

How This Changes Everything

Previously, marketers were forced to rely on third-party programs to check the viability of their Twitter marketing campaigns. Among other reasons, this is why programs like Hootsuite, TweetDeck, and Twitalyzer have become popular tools for marketers. Now, however, marketers have the option to ditch their third-party program and use the analytics already built in to Twitter itself.

But before you go running off to cancel your subscriptions and migrate your information, remember that this is a brand new feature—there are going to be bugs and drawbacks because the feature hasn’t had time to reach its full potential (it’s only been a day, for goodness’ sake).

Additionally, from my explorations of the feature, I’ve noticed some discrepancies in how Twitter calculates its metrics versus how my program of choice calculates those same values. This is particularly important when it comes to click data. My click counters show activity on my Twitter links whereas the new Twitter analytics chart does not. This could be because the feature is new and only applies tracking to Tweets sent out after the feature was rolled out. No matter the reason, I generally find it a good rule of thumb to cross-check your data with other programs to get the full picture of your Twitter marketing impact.

More Changes on the Horizon

This phrase is said all the time, so forgive me for saying it again—social media is an ever-changing industry. While these new updates are certainly exciting, they do not represent the end of the changes for Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media site. As users demand more out of their social experiences, social media site developers will continue to deliver. What’s still in store for us as social media managers and users is yet to be seen, but for now, enjoy these new features!

The post New Social Media Updates Change the Way You Connect appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

When you have inconsistent business information across the web, it confuses the search engines. How can you as a business identify where your inconsistencies are? Maybe you have some spreadsheets from a previous provider that have all of your useful usernames and passwords, but even with that information, it could potentially take a great deal of time to log into each source to check for accuracy. Maybe you aren’t fortunate enough to have received or save the previous logins for your business listings submissions. What do you do then? I’m going to recommend some tools that will identify your incorrect local business listings.

Best Tools to Identify Incorrect Local Business Listings

1) Getlisted.org

Just go to the home page of getlisted.org, enter in your business name and zip code, and it will check your local business listings for free. This is one of the fastest tools I use. It usually takes less than a minute, and it appears that they check about 20 different authority sources.

2) BrightLocal

BrightLocal has a citation tracker. This tool checks hundreds of sources and tells you if your business is listed or not. It not only checks the high authority local business listings, but also some of those sources that are niche and geo-targeted. It’s important that your business is listed correctly not only in the authority sources like superpages.com, but also a source that is specific to your state. For example: Texasmonthly.com  is a geo-targeted source. It also helps with given you the domain authority, citation value, type of site, and whether it’s a free or paid listing source.

3) Local Report Tool

One of my personal favorites to use is Local Report Tool. This tool will not only check your local business listings in 100+ directories, but will also identify how your listing is showing in the 3 major search engines – Google, Yahoo and Bing. Once a report is run, you can easily navigate between the:

• Overview of your business in the search engines & directories

• Local Report: Google+ Local consistency of name, address & phone number, number of photos, keywords, reviews, +1’s, review score, URL and hours your listing has

• Citation Finder- Here’s the bread and butter for identifying and cleaning up your incorrect sources. It will find where your business is listed whether it is a search engine, social site, press release site or directory, and will let you know if your business listings are consistent. Your incorrect business information sources will be visibly noticeable within the citation dashboard. This part of the tool will also identify both national, authority, niche and geo-specific sources that your business should currently be listed in.

4) Whitespark

Whitespark can be used to identify some of the local business listings your competitors are in so you are able to target those same sources for submission of your own business information.  I’ve been using this tool the longest. You enter your business N.A.P. (name, address and phone number), and the tool will “spin the hamsters”-it literally says that. Then, a list of sources are returned identifying your business. Let’s just say you had an old number for your business and want to locate and cleanup some of those erroneous listings. Just enter your old number into Whitespark, and it will return direct links to outdated business listings.

Another way to use this tool is to identify some new sources that you can submit your business to. You will just enter in your keyword of choice and your city + state and the tool will “program the Flux capacitor.” You can then take that data and submit your business. This is one of the only tools that I’ve found that provides the AC Rank metric that comes from Majestic SEO.

How to Clean Up Your Local Business Listings

Now that you are able to identify where your business listing is or can be submitted, and whether or not your business information is listed accurately, it’s time to start cleaning up and submitting. Depending on how many listings you need to clean up or submit to, I’ve found it to take up to 10 hours or more.  All 4  tools mentioned above offer some sort of directory submission service for your convenience, varying in pricing. I’ll explain in a later post how to filter a directory based on metrics before you submit your business to it.

Once you have a consistent Local Search Ecosystem for your business, the search engines will reward you with better visibility. Look at it like the search engines do. Example A is a business that has 4 different numbers across 100 different business listing sources. Example B (example A’s competitor) has 1 number across 100 different business listing sources. Who would you trust?

What tools do you use to find and correct inaccurate your local business listings?

The post Identifying and Cleaning Up Your Local Business Listings appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

If you’re looking for reasons to optimize your mobile website and form a full mobile marketing strategy, here are a few:

No matter the type of business you own, more and more people are looking to their mobile devices to find you. It’s crucial that you provide a good user experience for those who land on your mobile site as well as a fast, eye-catching incentive to choose your business over others.

The switch to a mobile strategy may be daunting, but you don’t have to do it all at once. Start small with a couple of these suggestions:

• Optimize a small mobile site for your business. Even two or three pages is fine—the whole point of mobile is a faster user experience.
• Offer coupons by text message.
• Update your online listings so mobile users can easily find out where you are and what you do.
• Start using mobile ads like Google Ads or Facebook.
• Provide customers with an online app.
• If you sell products, create a mobile storefront.

Simple changes can make a world of difference for your business, increasing your customer base and improving your online reputation.

If you weren’t convinced before, you should be now. SMS marketing is a trend your business cannot afford to miss!

The post It’s Time to Consider a Mobile Marketing Strategy appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

Courtesy of memegenerator.net

Google’s Penguin 2.0 went live on 22 May to the surprise, and dismay, of SEOs and webmasters around the globe. Conversations and interviews with Matt Cutts, Google’s search spam guru, in early May lead many to believe the launch was still “weeks away,” but Penguin 2.0 was launched just a few days later and its impact has already been felt by a number of websites.

One of the major targets of Penguin 2.0 was links and link building practices. Google has long detested poor link building practices, whether that consisted of existing links to dead pages or purchased links from link providers that often consisted of little more than “spammy” content.

With the launch of Penguin 2.0, these link building practices were targeted for punishment and a number of otherwise clean websites began to suffer because of poor link practices. Among the most common problems these otherwise upstanding websites suffered from were links to websites that were no longer active, as well as links that directed users to malicious content.

Cutts highlighted in interviews and blog posts prior to Penguin 2.0’s launch, as well as during blog posts as Penguin went live, that webmasters could clean up their links and avoid punishment with the help of Google’s link Disavow Tool. Using the tool, SEOs and webmasters can report links which cannot be removed manually to Google and sever connections that way.

However, it appears that numerous users have been struggling to use the Disavow Tool appropriately and are still being punished by Penguin 2.0. As a result, Cutts posted a video to the Google blog on 11 June offering up some of the most common mistakes they are seeing from SEOs and webmasters when using the Disavow Tool. In doing so, Cutts is not only throwing a bone to users but also attempting to achieve another Google goal; better communication with webmasters and internet marketing companies.

Common Mistakes

In the blog video, available here, Cutts highlights six of the most common mistakes that Google has noticed in the early days of Penguin 2.0 when webmasters report links through the Disavow Tool. The following are some of the common mistakes Google has noticed to date:

• Too Specific: When users are reporting links to the Disavow Tool they are often being too specific in listing individual links, even when those links come from the same domain. Cutts recommends users take a more “machete-like” approach and simply disavow entire domains. Using a “domain: name” command users can disavow an entire domain at once, nailing all the links from it in one swing.

• Poor syntax: The Disavow Tool is not perfect and is capable of stuttering when users have poor syntax in their files. This poor syntax leads the program to toss out requests, leaving those bad links on pages.

• Save the Story: Users are putting the whole story behind disavowing links inside their TXT files submitted to the tool, again causing the system to raise flags and toss out requests. The reasoning behind links that are being disavowed should be included in the reconsideration request section instead, according to Cutts.

• Keep Comments Short: Cutts pointed out that many users are putting too many comments in their TXT files or using poor syntax doing so, and again causing the system to raise flags on their requests. He went as far as pointing out that in some cases users might be better off not commenting on the links they are disavowing.

• System Can’t Do It All: The Disavow Tool isn’t there to help webmasters clean up all their bad links. While it can do a great deal to help rid a site of particularly tricky spam links, it cannot do all the work. Webmasters will need to put in some manual effort on their own to remove poor links in order to get out from under Penguin’s scrutiny.

Most importantly, as noted by Cutts, improper file uploads have been the biggest sticking point for many users. All files uploaded to the Disavow Tool need to be in simple TXT file format. Many users have been uploading Word files (.DOC) and Excel spreadsheets, and as Cutts explains, the system is not set up to read those files and tosses them out.

While many SEOs and webmasters have rightfully worried about the impact Penguin 2.0 will have on their rankings, they cannot accuse Google of cold-heartedly unleashing Penguin on the web and not helping them adjust. Following Cutts’ advice should help a number of users get around any link trouble they’ve been having.

The post Matt Cutts Throws a Bone to SEOs Struggling with Penguin 2.0 appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

• Online games
• Chat systems
• News sites
• Monitoring systems

I recently needed a solution that could periodically check a database table to see if it had been updated with the information my application required. Once the database was updated, I needed my script to automatically update my content with that information.

The Solution

I came up with a very simple solution that relies on Javascript’s setInterval method to make periodic AJAX requests to the server and check to see if the needed information is available. Once the information was there, I ended the setInterval method by calling the clearInterval method as shown below.

    function periodicRefresh(requiredInfo){

    var myInterval = setInterval( function(){

        $.ajax({
            url: '/system/myServerScript.php',
            type: 'POST',
            dataType: 'json',
            data: {ri: requiredInfo},
            success: function(response){

                if(response.success == true){
                    // UPDATE THE CONTENT WITH THE NEW INFORMATION
                    var freshData = response.data;
                    $('#oldData').replaceWith(freshData);
                    // ONCE THE NEW DATA HAS BEEN OBTAINED, END setInterval
                    clearInterval(myInterval);
                }

            }
        });
    // REPEATS EVERY 5 SECONDS UNTIL clearInterval IS CALLED
    },5000);
}

This is a very simple example of periodic refresh, and there are several ways to accomplish the same thing. Many applications will require a system that constantly checks the server for changes as long as the user is active such as: chat systems, news sites, and monitoring systems. In these situations, it is important to stay focused on optimization since every request demands resources on both ends. The developer should try to increase the average refresh period and reduce the content sent per refresh without having a negative impact on user experience.

Make the Server Aware of the Browser and Vice Versa

Making the server more aware of the browser and the browser more aware of the server is one key to optimizing periodically refreshing applications.

To make the server more aware of the browser, the browser can upload a message to the server periodically to let the server know the user is still active. If the user is not still active, the polling will end, saving the server precious resources.

To make the browser more aware of the server, the browser can monitor the server’s resources and dynamically modify the interval based on the server’s ability to keep up.

The post Building Interactive Online Applications with Periodic Refresh appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

To help some of my fellow link builders out there, I decided to reach out to and interview some of the most well-known thought leaders in the industry to see what they thought about link building today and what some of their favorite and least favorite strategies were. I decided to break this post up into a three-parter, so stay on the lookout for my interviews with Julie Joyce from SEO Chicks and Aaron Wall from SEO Book.

Interview With Jon Cooper

First up is Jon Cooper from Point Blank SEO, a well-known link building blog where he offers his own insight and advice on link building strategies. Jon also offers a link building course for those who are just starting out as well as those looking for new and improved link building tactics. Some of my favorite posts from Jon include “Link Building Strategies-The Complete List” and “Link Building Resources-A Curated List.” And now, on to the interview!

Jon Cooper, Point Blank SEO

Jon Cooper is an SEO consultant and the author of Point Blank SEO, a link building blog. You can follow him on Twitter at @PointBlankSEO.

1) If there was one link building strategy you wish would fall off the face of the earth, what would it be?

Guest blogging. Then, the average link builder wouldn’t have a clue how to do “white hat” SEO.

2) Conversely, which link building strategy do you wish more people would employ?

First of all, if more people employed a strategy I’d love, it would mean less opportunity for me (let’s be honest, it’s a zero sum game). But I do think not enough people take advantage of fail-proof content for link building.

3) What link building strategy do you believe Google’s next update will hit the hardest?

It’s obvious, but guest blogging. Every Google cycle a new link building strategy will be employed by such a large portion of the Web, that it ends up (at it’s lowest form) becoming spam, whether it was black or white hat to begin with. There is still such a thing as quality guest blogging, but again, everything has a lowest form that is spammy.

4) What are your thoughts on directory submissions and social bookmarking as a link building strategy? Is it worth the time?

Directories are worth the time if there’s a lot of competition, and if there’s niche directory opportunities available. They’ve stood the test of time, and I don’t really see them being kicked any further by Google. Social bookmarking on the other hand is practically dead from a white hat perspective; it’s only alive, from the standpoint of effectiveness, in large scaled tiered link building campaigns.

5) What are your thoughts on the link disavow tool?

I haven’t used it myself, but it seems as though, once again, the small businesses are left in the dark, just because I feel like it takes an expert (a highly paid one) to effectively use the link disavow tool to help remove a penalty.

6) What are your 3 favorite tools for outreach?

I just have one main tool that I use, which is Buzzstream.

7) What’s the most creative way you’ve ever gotten a link?

[Not answering because I gave this answer exclusively to my email subscribers; I like to give them benefits they can’t get elsewhere. Sorry!]

*Editor’s note: If you’d like to subscribe to Jon’s newsletter, enter your email here.

8) What resources would you recommend those new to link building read?

I highly suggest this list of resources I created that I like to keep updated – created it for questions just like this.

9) Do you consider link building and content marketing to be synonymous? Why or why not?

Not at all. It’s like saying tactic = strategy. A tactic is just one way a strategy can be carried out. In this case, link building is the strategy, and content marketing is the tactic. But content marketing can (and does) serve more purposes than just link building.

10) What’s an example of really superb content you’ve come across recently? What drew you to it?

One of the best examples of content I’ve ever seen is the NYT’s story titled Snow Fall. They incorporated interactive elements (i.e. gifs, videos, changing backgrounds, etc.) with text making one of the best digital experiences I’ve ever seen. I think it’s a great example of telling a story using design without making it all about design. Sometimes we want that extra parallax effect or cool graphic, but it doesn’t always ‘fit’ or make sense to the reader. In this example, the interactive elements added to the story and improved it, rather than being it’s own thing just to look at.

11) What’s one thing you’re surprised most SEOs don’t know/think they know?

I guess one thing SEOs think they know is where to draw the line on what link building tactics are considered safe, and which aren’t (regardless of hats). I’ve gotten messages from people saying “but Jon, that’s against Google guidelines!”, but at the end of day, that kind of link building will never get devalued, let alone penalized (as long as they’re not being completely blatant with what they do).

12) What’s your favorite sitcom, and why is it Friends?

Haha my favorite sitcom is actually Parks & Rec. I recently changed it from The Office because their last few seasons have been so subpar.

A special thanks goes out to Jon Cooper for participating, and be sure to be on the lookout for my next interview with SEO Chick’s, Julie Joyce.

What did you think about Jon’s comments? Join the conversation below!

The post Link Building Interview Part 1 appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

Learn What to do if Your WordPress Gets Hacked

WordPress is the most commonly used content management system (CMS) today, so if you’re a business owner who uses WordPress, it’s important to know the signs and what to do if your WordPress gets hacked to not only protect yourself, but your consumers as well. Hackers can steal data and personal information as well as place links within your site pointing to who knows what. The cleanup from a compromised blog could take days, costing you and your business time and money, so learn how to detect possible signs of website hacking and how you can prevent it.

Signs Your Site Has Been Compromised

Some of the most common signs your site has been hacked include:

• Home page has been defaced.
• You no longer have admin access to your site.
• A red Google Warning page comes up when accessing your site.
• You receive warnings from your anti-virus software.

What Can You Do?

If you suspect your WordPress has been hacked, WordPress recommends you take these steps. I would also recommend you change your username from “admin” to a unique username as well as bulk up your password security. According to SplashData, some of the most commonly used passwords in 2012 included:

•  password
• 123456
• 12345678
• abc123
• qwerty
• monkey
• letmein
• dragon
• 111111
• baseball
• welcome
• jesus
• ninja

It also showed that 1 in 10 people still use 1234 as their banking pin number. Scary stuff. Protect yourself by using different passwords for different sites, not the same password for every program you use. It’s also recommended you use a mix of characters, letters, and numbers and remember, the longer and more random your password, the better.

Read through this infographic to learn more about WordPress hacking including why people hack blogs, how it happens, and what you can do about it.

.

The post What to do if Your WordPress Gets Hacked appeared first on Advice Interactive Group.

Recently, I wrote an article published on Search Engine Journal, and just a few weeks later I found this on Slideshare:

Upon further review, I noticed that EVERY BLOG ON HIS SITE, at least every one I looked at, IS STOLEN!

How can he get away with this and what can I do about it?

This is not right. It’s not ethical and, as a matter of fact, I think it’s downright illegal. (So I thought) I started looking at other stories he posted on his site and I found out that this is not an isolated event.

This blog posted on his site “Affiliate Forum Marketing: What are the Benefits?” was actually stolen from http://www.makingyourlivingonline.com and written by Jonas Alferez on November 2012. Here it is in its original format: http://jonasalferez.com/tag/affiliate-internet-marketing-can-buy-some-happiness/. As a matter of fact, this article has been plagiarized a couple times since its original release:

• Here it is turned into a Press Release by Sharita: http://m.ibosocial.com/sharita23/pressrelease.aspx?prid=204592
• Here it was republished by Joe Johnson: http://joejohnson.info/affiliate-internet-marketing-can-buy-some-happiness/

Let me say that I am not sure if these people who republished Jonas Alferez’s article had permission to use his content, or not. Also, I don’t know if I should be jealous or not, because my article was only plagiarized once… not multiple times. Hmmm.

Anyway, back to my question at hand. How can he get away with it, and what can I do? Well, the first thing I did was post a question on his blog: You can see it here:

Of course, I have not yet received an answer. Secondly, I alerted my business contact at Search Engine Journal to make him aware of the plagiarism, and thirdly, I sent a tweet and an email to SlideShare asking them to remove the offending slides. Below is the answer I received from Benjamin Woodard at SlideShare, and I do have to say that I was answered within the hour, so I was happy about that.

I subsequently sent them all the documentation they requested immediately upon receipt of their email, so let’s see how fast they take it down. The formal request was sent at 12:20 PM on 4/30/2013. So stay tuned… Oh by the way you can read the SlideShare procedures for removing content that has been “stolen” here: http://www.slideshare.net/terms#dmca

So now this has taken up most of my morning, and I am still frustrated. I feel that I need to go to every person Vadim Ivanenko has stolen from and alert them, but I have more important things to do like write this blog about my content being stolen.

Copying and Cheating Statistics

Maybe the digital content cheating goes back deeper than we think. During my research for this blog, I came across this infographic:

Courtesy of: Schools.com

I was amazed by the statistics and realize, after reading a number of articles, that plagiarism is going social. As a matter of fact, turnitin.com states that one-third of all content they studied is matched  from social networks, content sharing or question-and-answer sites where users contribute and share content, and Wikipedia remains the most popular single source for matched content on the Web. Interesting huh? I wonder what college Vadim Ivanenko attended, if any.

Is Plagiarism Illegal?

Well, apparently not. According to Jonathan Bailey who writes for Plagiarism Today, he states, “While much of the time, plagiarism is illegal, copying words, images, audio and video from others and passing it off as your own is often a form of copyright infringement. Most modern plagiarists run the risk of being copyright infringers as well as plagiarists just by the nature of their activities.”

But just as not all copyright infringements are plagiarisms, not all plagiarisms are infringements. There are many ways one can completely legally plagiarize including:

1. Plagiarize Works in the Public Domain: Once the copyright expires on a work, one can use it without fear of infringement. This includes plagiarizing it. Though many countries have moral rights that can extend past the copyright of the work, generally plagiarism is just as much of a non-infringement as attributed copying.
2. Non-Copyrightable Works: Likewise, many creative works don’t qualify for copyright protection at all. This includes works created by the U.S. government (though not state governments), fashion designs and creative works not fixed into a tangible medium of expression. Other elements of a work, including titles, ideas and concepts also don’t fall under copyright protection though many consider their use without attribution to be plagiarism.
3. Non-Infringing use: Finally, there are some cases where the work is copyrightable and not in the public domain but the use of it is non-infringing, such as when only small portions are used, leading to a possible fair use argument. Not all uses of a work are infringing and attribution is only a small factor in determining if a use is fair or not. You can read his whole article here:  http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2012/04/17/when-plagiarism-isnt-illegal/

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

What is my advice? Since I am the CEO of Advice Interactive Group (get it?)  I guess it stands to say that I always have an opinion and quite often I give advice even when it’s not requested. My advice today is don’t stand by and let it happen to you. Fight back. As a matter of fact, during the writing of this blog, and less than 1 hour after sending my request for removal to SlideShare, they removed the stolen content. Thank you SlideShare!

• If you want more information on what to do when you find your content has been stolen, go to: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/ . There you will find quite a bit of helpful information on plagiarism and how to handle the issue.
• http://www.blogherald.com/2007/06/25/the-20-best-free-anti-plagiarism-tools/ For the best anti plageriarism tools
• Copyscape - Copyscape Plagiarism Checker – Duplicate Content Detection Software
• Dustball – The Plagiarism Checker - Plagiarism Checker
• Plagium – Plagiarism Checker
• DupeOff - Plagiarism Checker
• Article Checker – Plagiarism Checker
• Plag Tracker – Plagiarism Checker
• Small Seo Tool’s Plagiarism Checker - Plagiarism Checker
• DupliChecker - Plagiarism Checker
• Search Engine Reports’ Plagiarism Detector - Advanced Plagiarism Checker & Free Article Checker Online
• Plagiarism Checker – Plagiarism Checker
• Plagiarism Detect - Plagiarism Checker
• Doc Cop - Plagiarism and Collusion Detection
• iThenticate – Plagiarism Checker

One last comment, if this has happened to you, drop me a line, comment on this blog, share this story and spread the word. Plagiarism will not be tolerated.

Yeah, we are good!

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