Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: September 16-21 2004

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September 19 2004

Amazon's A9 search engine grabs the spotlight

I've read many times over recent days about Amazon's A9 search engine being the next Google killer. Sure, it's a nice engine with lots of fancy tools, but the web search results are *not* A9's, it's powered by Google and others.

A9 is a real hybrid of search technology

• Web and image search results powered by Google
• Book info from Amazon
• Movie snippets from the Internet Movie Database
• Reference material from GuruNet
• Ads via Google Adsense
• Site information from Alexa

So, the Google naysayers can take a rest on this one. Of course, if we should suddenly see an amazonbot spidering our sites, I'll definitely be sitting up and taking notice :). 

Learn more about search engine optimization.

AOL dumps MS Sender ID, Open Source rebels

Over the last year, there's been a lot of talk about ISP's implementing Sender ID as a means of combating spam.

The Sender ID Framework (SDF) is meant to verify that each e-mail message originates from the domain from which it claims. This is based on the sender's server IP address.

Microsoft has been the driving force behind making Sender ID an industry standard and had originally attracted some of the world's biggest ISP's into the fold, including AOL. Last week, AOL announced it would cease using Microsoft's Sender ID technology and instead embrace an open-source friendly alternative.

Earlier this month, the Apache Software foundation and Debian software, both very well know Open Source groups also rejected Microsoft's sender ID initiative, stating that Microsoft's licensing conditions contradicted their distribution policies.

I think that given the very real dangers of spam and viruses causing the Internet to disappear up it's own backside, it's high time that we all dropped the politics and just got down to solving this problem. As much as I'm a fan of Microsoft for many other things they've achieved, they should bear in mind they missed the boat somewhat on the importance of the web in the early years. It's time for the company to start listening rather than dictating.

September 18 2004

Password sniffing worms

Anti-virus companies are warning of new worms that install a "sniffer" application to steal passwords from unsuspecting users. The new Sdbots (aka Spybot) exploit several vulnerabilities in Windows - they don't require user intervention to propagate, but do so through unpatched networks. 

As well as capturing passwords for instant messaging, the  network sniffer component monitors traffic on the network, focusing on capturing login details.

Read more about Sdbot

How fast can your password be cracked?

RSS to cause problems for web hosts?

RSS, the Really Simple Syndication protocol utilized mainly by blogs is gaining popularity very quickly - but there may be some dangers in terms of server stability for web hosts unprepared for issues related to delivering RSS feeds.

According to an article by Doug Kaye, high levels of RSS requests can have an impact similar to that of a denial-of-service (DoS) attack. Doug states that RSS readers, or aggregator, if left running, will retrieve feeds that the user subscribes to every hour of every day. That's fine in itself, but a single popular site hosted on a particular server may have thousands of of RSS users. Instead of those users visiting the site once a day and perhaps viewing a couple of pages, suddenly they are "visiting" (via the aggregator) 24 hours a day. Doug offers some advice for web hosts.

Learn more about the RSS revolution.

2005 online marketing budgets to grow

Millard Brown, a global market research agency, have released some results of their survey of over 300 senior marketing executives - some excerpts:

• 60% of marketers expect a budget increase in 2005.

• Marketers with a budget over over $400 million are most optimistic about increases to their 2005 budgets.

• Online marketing is fastest growing sector of overall ad spends and all aspects of online marketing are expected to increase at a higher rate than other forms of media.

• Online strategies are perceived to be the most effective way for acquiring and retaining customers. 

September 16 2004

Selling music? Search engine optimization a must.

If music is your niche in ecommerce and you've decided not to bother with sweating your search engine rankings, it may be worthwhile reconsidering.

Hitwise reported via Internet Week that in July this year, over 30% of visitors from the US who visited an online music site (retail) were referred via search engines. This represents a 49 percent increase in search engine referrals over the previous year.

Across the board in terms of retail sites, HitWise reported that 19.2% of all visitors arrive on sites via search engine listings.

It appears that the majority of visitors to online music sites are between 25 and 44 years and have a household income of $30,000 to $60,000.

Need some advice? Check out our own search engine optimization guides or this great book on book on search engine marketing..

Need to learn about  search engine ranking and optimization strategies, without having to spend months in research? More than just a book; this is one of the most comprehensive training programs published including the book, added tools, videos and a members only forum -  SEO BOOK

Virus writers panhandling for security jobs

For some virus-writers, they consider their "craft" a way to get into the IT security industry. We've all heard the stories of hackers getting jobs with security firms; but that appears to be changing. Sure, security firms want people who can think like a hacker, but times have changed - people don't have to break into NASA to prove their skills. Think about it -would you want someone who has a history of unlawfully accessing bank accounts etc. working on your systems and ecommerce applications?

It seems that some virus writers are getting rather desperate to land a job. I've read on a few sites that the viruses MyDoom.U and V contain a message in the coding stating, “We searching 4 work in AV industry.”

Perhaps they should learn how to use a grammar checker first ;). Honestly, it never ceases to amaze me that some virus writers spend hundreds of hours developing their evil little programs - and then include email text that looks like it was created by a 4 year old.

44% of US Internet users on broadband

The uptake of broadband over the last couple of years has been pretty amazing, especially in the USA. According to a survey by Harris Interactive, in 2002, only 22% of the US online population accessed the web via broadband - currently that number is 44%. 

Statistics from Harris Interactive also show that 93% of computer users also access the Internet. That number hasn't changed much in the last couple of years. It was interesting to note that under 10 years ago, the number of computer users accessing the Internet was only 18%.

Domain name registrations all-time high

Verisign has released their VeriSign® Domain Report for the second quarter of 2004. Amongst the findings:

• 64.5 million names currently registered, a 7 percent increase over 2003
• country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) make up 39 percent of all domain registrations
• .net is the fourth most popular extension
• Renewal rates for .com and .net increased from 50 percent in January 2003 to 71 percent in May 2004

Read more of the Domain Report

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