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Hyphens in Domain Names ... Are they Better?:
Would www.AllYear-Cooling.com work better than www.AllYearCooling.com?
Would www.Debbies-Staffing.com work better than www.DebbiesStaffing.com?
Would www.French-Interiors.com work better than www.FrenchInteriors.com?
Would www.Loft-Gallery.org work better than www.LoftGallery.org?
Would www.NuPro-Technologies.com work better than www.NuProTechnologies.com?
Would www.Pope-Equipment.com work better than www.PopeEquipment.com?
Would www.Splash-Pools-Inc.com work better than www.SplashPoolsInc.com?
etc., etc.
(From Search Engine News!)
"Is a non hyphenated keyword phrase better than a hyphenated phrase when choosing a domain name?
Answer: In regards to search engine positioning, we've had the best success at Excite with hyphenated keyword
phrases. This is not to say that we don't experience enhanced relevancy boost from using non-hyphenated
keyphrases in domain names because we do... it is just that the hyphenated version is a little better.
For example, if hawaiipapaya.com and hawaii-papaya.com were both available, which would be the best between the
two domains to register assuming that you could only register one and not both; and why?
Answer: For search engines, I would prefer the hyphen. That's because we've had pretty good luck scoring well
with these hyphenated domain names recently. However, if it's a good domain name I would register both to
keep the competition at bay as well as to take advantage of the way some of the new browsers work.
Specifically, with some versions of Internet Explorer, if you type "hawaii papaya" the browser attempt to
load "hawaiipapya.com". If your keyword phrase is popular, this particular browser feature can easily pull
enough traffic your way to make it well worth the domain maintenance fee.
Another reason to take both the hyphen and non-hyphenated keyphrase is due to the fact that the hyphen phrase
translates better in print while the non-hyphenated phrase sounds more understandable when spelled out or
pronounced verbally."
If you are wondering, YES, I do own www.Richs-Web-Design.com and the same EXACT site comes up
as www.RichsWebDesign.com ! Try it! Call me if you want an additional hyphenated domain name to point to your same web site!
Rich - 408-9075
"Google" - Find out who links to you! 
Google has a new feature that you might want to check out! ... Some words, when followed by a colon, have special meanings to Google. One such word for Google is the link: operator. The query link:siteURL shows you all the pages that point to your URL. For example, link:www.richswebdesign.com will show you all the pages that point to my site.
Try your site! Don't forget to include the "www."
New "Reeezak" Virus Alert!
A newly discovered computer worm, sent under guise of a holiday greeting, has popped up in the United States and Europe and, if activated, could destroy personal computers, experts said Wednesday. The Reeezak worm enters a computer as an e-mail message in Microsoft Outlook with a subject line "Happy New Year" and an attachment — "Christmas.exe" — which a recipient may think is a Christmas card.
The worm can disable selective keys on the infected computer's keyboard and delete all the files found in the Windows System Directory, rendering the computer inoperable, said Ian Hameroff, director of antivirus solutions for Computer Associates International.
Sept. 11th Sayings
... Friends:
For most of your sites,
I have moved the Sept. 11th saying lower on the screen. The reason why
... For some sites, the monthly updated search engines grab the first
few lines and place them as a description of your site.
For example, if you
went to www.Google.com and did a search for Kulp Reid Dentistry, you will
see the site www.KulpReid.com , but it will have the 9/11 saying as the
description. If you have kept up with my search engine news on www.RichsWebDesign.com/news.shtml
, you would know that Google updates their listings on the 25th of every
month. Also .. were you aware that Google is by far the most popular search
engine? Hmmm?
Let me know whatever
changes you need!
Rich
"Goner" Screen
Saver Virus Alert
This is a HIGH RISK virus that spread via
Microsoft Outlook and can be spread via ICQ. This is a mass mailing worm that
attempts to send itself to all entries in the Outlook Address book. The virus
will arrive with the following email message:
Subject: Hi
Body:
How are you ?
When I saw this
screen saver, I immediately thought about you
I am in a harry, I promise you
will love it!
Attachment: GONE.SCR
Running this attachment infects the local system.
When run, the worm displays a message box entitled, "About"
After a short time another windows entitled "Error" is displayed:
December Search Engine News
... From www.SearchEngineNews.com
Yahoo Adds Overture Paid Listings
Here is the official announcement from Overture:
Overture has signed an agreement to become the Pay-For-Performance search provider to Yahoo!'s millions of users. As a result of this deal and the holiday season, Overture's Premium Listings advertisers can anticipate a significant increase in high quality traffic. To get the benefit of additional targeted leads for your business, you must be listed in Premium Listings (the top three positions), and you should increase the funds in your account.
Google's most recent index-update was completed approximately November 30th. The index is including the many pages that were spidered around October 29th, 2001. Sites with a high page rank may be updated much faster and more frequently.
Inktomi Search Submit Price Increase
Inktomi increased their prices for the Search / Submit service on November 30th. The new pricing is $39 for the first URL and $25 for each additional URL.
Along with the price increase comes new restrictions. According to Inktomi, the option to change domains for a submission will be discontinued "due to spam problems".
Our assumption is that some people were getting banned and then just switching the paid URL over to a different domain. Inktomi notes that customers will be able to change file names (webpages) within the same domain for a submission, but not the domain name (URL) itself.
AltaVista
No major changes at AltaVista this month.
InfoSpace buys Excite assets
November 28th InfoSpace won the bid for the purchase of certain Excite@Home assets, including domain names, trademarks and user traffic associated with the Excite.com Web site.
You may recognize InfoSpace better as Dogpile.com, the meta search engine primarily powered by Overture.
Lycos - Last updated (Fast Index) with data spidered approximately October 28th, 2001. Frequently updated websites may get indexed quicker than those that seldom change. In general Fast updates about every 9 to 12 days.
FAST Releases Near Real Time News Search
Fast has released a near real-time news search that lives up to the company's name. It is currently available on the www.alltheweb.com web site and will be rolled out to portal customers like Lycos in December. Searches on many recent topics often show news listings that were updated between 10 and 15 minutes ago.
ODP - No strategic changes this month for ODP.
Looksmart - No strategic changes at LookSmart this month.
Overture - In November Overture completed a major deal with Yahoo (see article above) and is poised to receive a great deal of Excite's traffic via InfoSpace/Dogpile.
11/28 -
Badtrans.b Virus Alert!
(CNN) -- A devious Internet worm that can infect a person's computer without being clicked on continued to spread throughout the globe Tuesday, though antivirus companies expect its rate of propagation to slow by the end of the week.
While most major corporations have successfully blocked the worm at Internet gateways, officials from antivirus companies estimate that "tens of thousands" of computers have been infected by "Badtrans.b" during the past several days, many of them personal and home-business PCs.
"It's still spreading at a fairly high rate, though it should start slowing by the end of the week as more users update their antivirus software," said Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec's security response team.
"Badtrans.b," which began spreading throughout the United States and Europe over the Thanksgiving weekend, sends itself out through Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail programs.
Antivirus firm MessageLabs said it has stopped thousands of copies of Badtrans from more than 90 countries, noting that the worm has also bumped the "Sircam" virus from the No. 1 spot of the company's top 10 viruses list. Sircam had held that position for four months.
McAfee also continued to rank Badtrans as a "high" threat.
The attachment's characteristics are dynamic and can have several extensions, such as .zip, .mp3 or .doc, and several different names including: Humor, docs, Me_nude, images, info, Card and smPics. This shape-shifting technique makes it difficult for people to recognize the e-mail as a worm since it can appear to be legitimate.
Badtrans does not appear to delete data or cause any other damage.
Badtrans.b is a variant of Badtrans.a, which appeared in April. It has many of the same characteristics, but is reportedly in a more compressed format, thus evading some antivirus detection.
If users think their computer has been infected, they need to scan for the worm and update their antivirus software, Symantec's Weafer said. He recommended that the process be done offline to stop the worm from continuing to spread during the disinfection. Microsoft is also offering a patch on its site.
11-26
Badtrans Virus Alert!
A new variant of Badtrans has been discovered, referred to as Badtrans.b. AVERT has raised the Risk Assessment on this variant of W32/Badtrans@MM to High Risk for Consumers. We have received many reports from the home users that they have become infected. It is believed that failure to update recently has caused this increase in occurrence.
W32/Badtrans@MM is a mass-mailing worm that drops a remote-access Trojan. The virus arrives via email in Microsoft Outlook and attempts to send itself by replying to unread email messages. The email may contain the text "Take a look to the attachment" in the message body and will contain an attachment that is 13,312 bytes in length. The attachment name is created from three sections.
The first part is chosen from the possibilities: fun, Humor, docs, info, Sorry_about_yesterday, Me_nude, Card, SETUP, stuff, YOU_are_FAT!, HAMSTER, news_doc, New_Napster_Site README, images, Pics ,
The second part is chosen from the possibilities: .DOC., .MP3., .ZIP., and the last part from the possibilities: pif, scr
If the attachment is opened, the worm displays a message box entitled, "Install error" which reads, "File data corrupt: probably due to a bad data transmission or bad disk access." A copy is saved into the WINDOWS directory as INETD.EXE and an entry is entered into the WIN.INI file to run INETD.EXE at startup. KERN32.EXE (a backdoor Trojan), and HKSDLL.DLL (a valid keylogger DLL) are written to the WINDOWS SYSTEM directory, and a registry entry is created to load the Trojan upon system startup.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
RunOnce\kernel32=kern32.exe
Once running, the Trojan attempts to mail the victim's IP Address to the author. Once this information is obtained, the author can connect to the infected system via the Internet and steal personal information such as usernames, and passwords. In addition, the Trojan also contains a keylogger program which is capable of capturing other vital information such as credit card and bank account numbers and passwords.
336-408-9075
Rich@RichsWebDesign.com
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