You have products or services you want to sell? You want to use the internet as your main publicity vehicle? So you want a website? You want to sit atop the rankings for the search engines? You want loads of visitors to your site? You want a high conversion rate from visitors to paying customers? We are all in that situation and it is possible to achieve all of these wants by following a few simple rules.
1. Web Site Design.
Keep it simple with no flashy opening graphics. People searching for products or services do not want to wait while these graphics load and play through. They will probably have gone elsewhere before they get to the ‘nitty gritty’ of your site. Text based sites load faster, are more search engine friendly and are more likely to contain information the visitor is searching for. Base your site on plenty of good text and keep the graphics to the absolute minimum required to do the job.
2. Web Site Structure.
Produce as many pages as you can. The bigger the better.. Search Engines give a preference to sites with large numbers of pages. Plan a straightforward navigation path through these pages. Make it simple for people to find what they are looking for on your site and easy to click through onto different pages.
3. Web Site Content
Good quality content is a necessity if your site is to perform well. So what makes good quality content? Firstly it has to be well written from the point of view of grammar and punctuation. Secondly it must contain information into which your keywords can be embedded. Telling people how marvellous your products or services are is not good quality. Telling them what the likely benefits are to them is good quality and a better sales pitch into the bargain. Put yourself in the position of a visitor. Does your site tell them how to solve their problem? Is it informative and easy to read? It should be.
4. Search Engine Positions
Submit to as many free directories as you can find. Look at your competitors backlinks and find sites that you can also submit to. Develop some reciprocal links with related sites. What constitutes a related site is quite flexible so think carefully about these before committing to a link. Link with a wide range of sites with differing page rank values do not only choose those with high page ranks. The bulk of the links should be page rank 3 or 4. Develop a weblog attached to your site and keep this updated, at least once per week. This will attract the search engines to spider your site and will also attract in more links. Write and publish articles which will bring in large numbers of inbound links and by putting them onto your site will update and increase your content.
Four basic rules have been outlined above which if carried through should eventually see your ‘wants’ gratified. However I have only skimmed the surface as each of these topics are several articles in themselves, but you should be able to easily find information about each of them. Take on board the advice and your site will be one of the successful ones.
Yo, Santa! How’s it going in the great white north? Seeing as it tis’ the season, here is my letter about what I want for Christmas.
Been Good
Santa, I know you do that whole good versus bad thing. I promise I’ve been a good internet marketer this year. I haven’t spammed the search engines with mirror sites, link farm purchases or little tricks to tweak your friends at Google. Now, while I’ve been good, I would like a few bad things for Christmas. No ponies here, I want the good stuff.
Dear Santa, I want:
1. A lump of coal to be given to the bad person or persons at Yahoo who’ve been deleting my pages from their search engine results.
2. A lump of coal to the same people at Yahoo who came up with the Site Match nonsense. Feel free to let the reindeer relieve themselves while on the roofs of these peoples’ homes.
3. To meet a person from Google who handles the ranking updates in a bar late at night after they’ve been drinking for four or five hours. I only need 15 minutes. Pleeeeasssee! I’ve been so good.
4. Five minutes in the Ultimate Fighting Octagon with Bill Gates.
5. A few hours with your list of bad people who will get coal for the holidays. Don’t worry, I can figure out which ones are fraudulently clicking my PPC ads.
6. Please send the Santa virus to the people who keep sending me the phishing Pay Pal emails.
7. Same thing for the bad boys and girls sending me pharmaceutical spam.
8. The opportunity to beat each dmoz volunteer editor over the head with my keyboard just once. Okay, maybe twice.
Now I realize you are a master of being subtle. When I visited you at the mall, you acted like I was a lunatic and you didn’t know what I was talking about. I really didn’t appreciate you calling security and the FBI, but I guess everybody has a bad day. I’m sure I can count on you to come through this year.
Oh, I forgot something. Angelina Jolie. Definitely Angelina Jolie. Leave her short dork boyfriend at home.
Now that isn’t much to ask is it? Is it?
Technorati tags: santa coal people here christmas.
Backing up one’s Compact Flash card has a number of benefits: storage, convenience and reliability.
Backup for storage
First of all, backing up one’s Compact Flash card to a laptop is great for storing all kinds of data, stored on a card, like images, audio files and what not. Since Compact Flash card size is limited (to 4Gb for now), backing up one’s card can be a convenient way of using a single card perpetually.
Backup for convenience
Secondly, backing up one’s Compact Flash card can be a convenient way of copying data between laptops. Using such a small medium, which can fit in one’s hand, to copy data between computers seems to be rather comfortable, as one does not have to connect the computers, or use another medium as an intermediate.
Backup for security
Thirdly, backing up one’s Compact Flash card to a laptop can be a way to secure the data, stored on the card, in case a file gets deleted, damaged, or the card itself gets damaged or list. When coping data from a Compact Flash card to a laptop, the files will also be stored on a laptop and will be ready to replace the damaged or lost files.
As seem from above, Compact Flash card backup has a number of benefits. To reap the benefits, one can download Handy Backup and use it to backup one’s Compact Flash card to a Windows laptop or any PC with the right adapter.
Once you have optimized the onsite factors from part one of this series it’s time to launch into the external factors. External SEO factors generally refer to the internal links to your, and your competitor’s, website.
Analyzing the links to your competitors is not a simple matter of running a link:www.competitorsdomain.com on Google and rushing off and duplicating what you find there. First of all, Google does not display all of the links they find to a site and thus, this count will leave you with about 5 or 6 percent of the real links to your main competitors. Yahoo! is much better at displaying all the links to a site however even this has it’s shortcomings in the analysis process. Secondly, the number of links is only a fraction of what’s important in their development.
To fully grasp how your competitors are ranking highly for your targeted phrases you will want to know a number of things about the links to their site including:
How many links do they have?
How many of these links come from the same sites?
Are these sites relevant?
What is the PageRank distribution of the links?
Are these links image or text links and if text,
What anchor text is used to link to your competitor’s site?
Why Are These Factors Important?
These factors are important as they define the value of the link. The number of links is perhaps the least important of these factors. A site can have 10,000 incoming links and if they are all from a single unrelated site with a low PageRank then the value of these links is negligible.
Knowing how many of the links to your competitor’s site come from the same site or sites will let you know where they have bought advertising and also help isolate weakness in their link counts. Multiple links from the same website are not given the same value as multiple links from different websites. If your competitors have thousands of incoming links that come from 5 different websites you have far less work to do that if they even had a couple hundred, all from different sites.
The relevancy of the incoming links is extremely important and gaining importance every update. Unfortunately this is also the hardest factor to gauge as, “what constitutes relevancy?” and, “how exactly do I find out if my competitors links are relevant without visiting every one of their links?” can be problematic questions.
Gauging relevancy can generally be done with a simple thought: if I am on a site and the link makes sense to be there (for example, a web design company linking to a web hosting company) then it can be considered relevant. Basically, if there are people who will actually click the link then it is relevant. Finding out if your competitor’s links are relevant without visiting every one of their link partners is a different hurdle to jump.
Rather than visiting each-and-every link it is easier view only the most important ones; that would be the ones from high PageRank pages. But how does one do that?
As with the use of a KDA tool in part one, we use the external analysis features of Total Optimizer Pro (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/resources/recommended/top.htm) to tear apart the external factors our main competitors are using to hold top ten positions. While in part one I was able to note that there are other tools out there that break down keyword density elements, I am not able to do the same with offsite optimization factors. Total Optimizer Pro is the only tool we use that allows for such detailed analysis of external SEO factors when dealing with competition analysis.
The first step is to isolate which domains the links are coming from. The more links coming from a few domains the better as this indicates that the competition is lower than a pure link-count would indicate. Moving on from there we look to the PageRank breakdown of the links. The higher the numbers of high PageRank links the more difficult the competition is however, once you have isolated which domains the links are coming from it is often simply a matter of visiting the site and establishing the same links to yours either through exchanges, directory listings, or other tactics.
While you are on the sites, assess whether the content is relevant. You will undoubtedly not want to visit each and every page that links to your competitors however if you visit all the top sites (i.e. PageRank 3 or higher) you will get a very solid idea of the relevancy value of the links. Once we know the value in regards to relevancy of the content we now need to know what they’re doing in regards to transferring that relevancy along in the form of their links.
Using a tool such as Total Optimizer Pro it is simple to determine exactly what types of links are pointing to your competitors, however it is possible, though much more time-consuming, to do it manually (i.e. you will have to visit every page).
An important factor in SEO and the building of relevancy to your site comes in the form of anchor text. The verbiage used to link to your site, or the alt text in the event the link is an image link, can play an important role. To illustrate this with a great example; searches on Google for “msn” results in the page www.submit-it.com in position seven. If you view the cache, rather than receiving the highlighted use of the term “msn” (as noted in Part One of this series) you receive the note that, “These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: msn”. The relevancy of the anchor txt in this case is so strong that this page outranks many with “msn” optimized for using onsite factors.
What Do We Know?
So what do we now know about our competition? We now know where their links are coming from, the PageRank of those links, the relevancy of the top links, the anchor text and/or alt tags used to link to your competitors’ sites, and how many of those are multiple links from the same site. Basically, combined with the information that was attained in part one of this series in regards to the onsite factors we effectively have a blueprint for what is required to hold a top positions for a specific phrase.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So now you have a blueprint, but what do you do with it? The onsite factors covered in part one need to be duplicated. The offsite factors (i.e. incoming links) need to be duplicated however what you also must keep in mind is that you are working to beat someone out. They in turn will work to take back their position, and there may be others working to do that same that just haven’t shown up yet.
Here we follow the 10%-more rule. In regards to onsite factors, all you can do is work with the average keyword densities and make sure your content is well written while maximizing the usage of keyword density and special text to give you the biggest boost possible. After that the 10% rule comes into effect. Once you know exactly what your main competitors have done in regards to their incoming links, do that but add 10% either in numbers or in value and relevancy.
While this entire process can be very time consuming, the goal here is not to save time, it is to maximize the effectiveness of the SEO performed on your site. Spending a fraction of the time to produce little or no results is never as desirable as insuring you’re doing it right from the beginning and then taking the time to do what’s needed, thus increasing your odds of success greatly.
Technorati tags: links site factors link competitors
That desk in front of you and everything else around you is made up of atoms. An atom consists of electrons orbiting around a nucleus. An atom is increadibly tiny. You could line up 10 million of them inside a millimeter. What if we could scale up an atom so that the nucleus was the size of a basketball? The orbits of its electrons would then be 15 miles away.
From this you can understand that atoms are almost all empty space. The nucleus of the atom is composed of quarks. If you could see a quark or an electron up close, it might appear as a tiny vibrating glow of energy. It turns out this world, which is causing us so many problems and so much stress, is mostly an illusion!
The electrons orbit the nucleus at about the speed of light. If you could see them, they might appear as a blur. They do not orbit in a plane like the pictures in books. They create a shell. Sometimes two or more atoms will share electrons, causing them to link together forming a molecule.
Looking at that desk in front of you again, it looks pretty solid. Actually, unless your desk is floating in deep space where the temperature is close to absolute zero, the molecules of your desk are vibrating like crazy. Picture the molecules bouncing around and smacking into each other like balls on a pool table.
If you have ever played pool, you’re very familiar with how when a pool ball hits another pool ball, it transfers it’s energy to the second pool ball. When heat causes molecules to vibrate, they transfer energy between each other in a similar fashion. This action is called “conduction”.
Now picture the CPU of a computer cooking away because the designer wants to push too much power through a small piece of silicon. If we don’t take away that heat as fast as it’s created, that CPU will fry!
The problem is usually solved by mounting a heat sink on the CPU. Conduction causes the heat to move from the hot CPU to the cooler heat sink. Because air doesn’t conduct heat as well as metal, We apply a thin layer of heat sink compound between the CPU and the heat sink to fill in any gaps.
You’ll notice that a heat sink has fins on it. The fins allow the heat sink to conduct the heat to the air adjacent to the fins. The fins provide more surface area to aid in conduction. Eventually the adjacent air will get as hot as the heat sink and conduction will cease.
If we move the air away from the heat sink, it will take the heat energy with it. A fan mounted on the heat sink is used to move the air. This method of heat transfer is called convection. Eventually all the air inside the computer case will get hot, so fans are used to blow the air out of the case of the computer.
The heat has moved from the CPU, to the heat sink, to the air inside the case, to the air in the room where you’re sitting at your computer desk. The room starts to get hot, and eventually the air conditioner turns on.
You can view an air conditioner as a “pipe”. A fan blows the hot air from your room through fins that transfer the heat to a liquid. The liquid is piped to fins outside the house. A fan blows cooler outside air past the fins to remove the heat from the liquid.
The air conditioner has an evaporator valve that changes the liquid to a gas after the heat is removed. In a gas, the molecules are further apart than in a liquid. This causes it to cool down quite a bit more. The gas goes through the fins inside the house, picking up heat. It is then compressed into a liquid to concentrate the heat so the outside fins can remove the heat more efficiently.
Shuttle’s I.C.E. (Integrated Cooling Engine) Heat Pipe uses a very similar method to cool a CPU. The CPU has a heat sink with copper heat pipes. The heat of the CPU causes liquid coolant inside the heat pipe to change to a gas. Convection created by the pressure of the gas moves the coolant to a second heat sink where a fan is used to blow the heat out of the computer’s case. Releasing the heat causes the coolant to change back to a liquid. Gravity then carries the coolant back to the CPU heat sink.
One last method of heat transfer we haven’t discussed yet is radiation. Some of the heat of the CPU and the heat sink is released as infrared radiation. Similar to light (although invisible to human eyes), the radiation strikes the insides of the computer case, causing it to get warm. Ultimately the computer case itself acts as a heat sink conducting heat to the outside air.
This article explains the three ways - conduction, convection, and radiation - that heat is transported from a computer CPU to the air outside the computer case. You now understand the thermodynamics of a computers and why it is important to maintain its various components.
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The tech-heads need to build new software that makes obtaining information and collective communication a simple process for the average human.
Being the total opposite to a technical person, it is hard to imagine future Internet software advances. The techno-humans have come up with incredible ideas and subsequently their ideas have come to fruition. It seems like anything a human puts their mind to can be done. Our species has come such a long way, but I feel the key to the next part in our evolution of technology and consciousness is to integrate the ideas of the average person. Who do we build all this technology for anyway? I think it’s made for humans to have a better life. It’s time to start making the technological advances in computing with the non-computer-based people of the world in mind. A famous American journalist Sidney J. Harris once said,
“The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.”
Computer and Internet specialists have to realize that they have gone so deep into their fields that they now can no longer see what the computer world looks like to a novice like myself. All this techno-jargon and hundreds of different types of software can be quite overwhelming to a normal person who just wants to take part in this new way of interacting with reality and society.
We’ve got to simplify if we want this awesome force to be integrated into our lives in its highest form. I know the Internet is growing at an incredible rate already. One only has to look at the example of India to see the incredible mark Information Technology has made. You can go into a tiny village that looks relatively the same as it has been for fifty years; the general infrastructure is shocking: broken traffic lights, decrepit buildings, power lines splaying out in chaotic patterns. But, something big has changed; each town now has a satellite dish, and an ISP connection (Internet Service Provider)! This is truly amazing. However I believe it is only the beginning of a new revolution that will arrive when we simplify the information and communication processes.
So what’s the special answer to the sacred question? Well, I haven’t got all the ideas, but I know of six billion human souls out there who I’m sure would have an opinion if you asked them. Find out what people really want and need. Recently I wrote an article on how great it would be if we could get our News from multiple sources instead of the one-to-many, top-down structure that feeds us so much negativity today. An opportunity to only read relevant News to the individual’s liking also sounds like a great project to take on. Wouldn’t it also be great if we could communicate easily with others of similar interests? E.g.: Finding the blogs and websites that interest us without having to search for days on end to find them!
These are just a couple ideas the software masters could approach to make the new revolution of collective consciousness and independent thinking a reality. I truly believe the Internet could be the gate of entry into a new dimension for the average citizen of Earth, a dimension that thrives on the sharing of knowledge from multiple perspectives, communication that involves everyone, and incredible access to individuals who you’ve always wanted to meet. Come on people, let’s get with the program! Humans are a resilient, powerful race of creatures; it’s time to duplicate all this energy we’ve put into producing technology and put it into making it easily used by the masses for positive means. The plant has grown into a tall healthy tree, now it’s time to harvest the fruit of all our labor.
Most of the talk going on in the computer processor industry is revolving around dual core processors. But what advantages do they actually give and is it worth it in terms of price?
All processors have a core. A core contains some memory, often referred to as cache, either L1, L2 or L3, depending on how close it is to the core, and the core itself, as well as a few other essentials. The core is the “brain” part, it performs all the big calculations that are needed for the various things a computer does.
Computer cores have been increasing in speed, and increasingly quickly. Manufacturers were in a race to have the chip with the fastest speed, measured in GHz. One surprise is that despite these increases in clock speed, the actual speed of programs didn’t increase proportionately.
As modern programs make much heavier use of other computer parts like memory, and there are often many running at the same time, another approach was needed.
Dual core processors were the answer.
By putting two “brain” parts into the processor, you can run two programs on two cores, without having to share it between them. The effect of this is that when running two or more programs, the processor can now handle much more as a whole.
The part about them that might disappoint is gaming.
Unlike the multitasking environment that is usual for a computer either at home or at the office, games rely on the brute force of a powerful processor to help them along. So far there is no technology to take advantage of the two processors, like the ability to split its tasks over two cores. Most gaming has not improved with this new technology.
As with processors in the past the mainstream of dual core processors is dominated by the two big guys, Intel and AMD.
Intel offers two processors in its range, same processor, just different speeds. The lower priced of the Pentium D processors comes in at around $250. This price is reasonable considering how much you would pay for the top of the line single core processor.
The Pentium D is based on the same core as it’s single core counterparts, just two of them inside. Its boost in performance is quite notable, and makes it presence felt in the multitasking environment.
The AMD Athlon X2 is AMD’s offering in the dual core market. Unlike the Pentium D its lowest priced model comes in at a staggering $400. It’s not expensive compared to processors like its FX series, which are over $1000, but in comparison to Intel it’s expensive.
It too is based on the same core as its single core cousins and also offers the same performance increases.
The price of the AMD is surprising. From a company that became renowned for it’s low cost, high performance processors this is quite a blow. Even the upper model of the Pentium Ds comes in at less that AMD’s cheapest model.
The price might be justified if the AMD actually gave a significant performance boost, but it doesn’t.
For the first time in a long time, I think I would be willing to switch back to an Intel processor. Although my preference is not for dual core, if I had or needed to switch I would certainly go straight for the Pentium D.
And finally, how do they compare to their now out of date traditional processors?
Considering how powerful processors have become I would still not make the switch. Dual core has not been around long enough to produce low cost, slightly out of date models. The power of the AMD Athlon 64 3000 more than does it for my computing needs, and that’s where I would stay for now.
So for those who are looking for the next cool thing for their desktop computer and price is not a huge issue, this would be your best choice, but go for the lower end Pentium D.
Technorati tags: core processors computer dual pentium
There are various tools available in the computers, for your web designing and writing. One of them is the tool, Microsoft Powerpoint. This powerful tool is used to create professional looking presentations and slide shows from scratch or by using its
easy wizard. By using the PowerPoint software, you can make any form of background you may need for your program. Using
different values in the program, you can get animated backgrounds, music backgrounds and even Christmas and religious
backgrounds.
The world of internet has made advertising so easy, that you can shop, buy and download perfect PowerPoint templates and
PowerPoint background videos in a matter of minutes. Not only this, there are terrific, ready-made PowerPoint background slides
be available where you can change your dull PowerPoint presentation into an aggressive, attention grabbing and energetic
presentation in not time at all.
With the free PowerPoint templates available in the internet, you can try out your skills at the PowerPoint presentation background,
without actually first buying it. You can download these Microsoft PowerPoint templates for free for your education and use.
Remember, all the PowerPoint background slides have been pre-set by expert graphic designers. The design background, typeface
and colors have all been expertly designed; all you have to do is insert the text, and you have it!
You can experiment in making animated backgrounds in the PowerPoint by setting different values in the program. The background
animates when an absolute value has been specified for either the horizontal or the vertical directions. If at all both the directions
are specified, the background is animated diagonally. By making changes in the PowerPoint values, you can form blue blocks,
closed circuit, award night and many more other PowerPoint background presentations. These changes bring about moving
characters on the computer screen.
If you need graphics for specific web pages, they too are available in abundance in the internet. You just have to download these
special backgrounds, like Christmas, New Year and other festivities’ backgrounds from the internet for free. You then use these
graphics in your web page as you desire. There is another free software available for download in the internet, the Movie Wizard,
where you can spice up your slideshows with the addition of graphics and background music and animating photos with the help of
their tutorials.
Technorati tags: powerpoint background available backgrounds internet
Summary: Could the mass media hype about computer viruses actually make the problem worse?
If you believe what you hear in the media, there are an awful lot of viruses going around. No, I’m not talking about the make-you-sick kind of virus, though they get plenty of airtime, too. I’m talking about the kind of virus that enters via your internet connection rather than your nasal passages.
What the mainstream media often don’t tell you–at least, in most radio and television newscasts and in the crucial headlines and opening paragraphs of newspaper articles– is that many of these “viruses” are not viruses at all.
What Computer Viruses Really Are
The main reason the mainstream media always are in alarm over viruses is that they tend to call any malicious computer program a virus. In reality, there are at least eleven distinct types of malicious software, or malware, commonly affecting computers today. The most common of these are worms, Trojans, and spyware.
So, what’s the difference between computer viruses and the other types of malware? The difference is that computer viruses are just about the only ones that regularly shut down computers and cause other obvious damage. The most common of the other kinds of malware–worms, Trojans, and spyware–are usually only detectable with a special scan.
The Real Danger of Computer Viruses
If the other types of malware are so unobtrusive that they can only be detected with a special scan, then what’s to worry about? For starters, these programs are called malicious for a reason: they are designed to cause some kind of damage, if not to your computer, then to someone else’s.
Worms are most famously used to damage, destroy, or disrupt other computer networks than the one on which the host computer is located. For instance, worms have been used by website owners to shut down rival websites by sending overwhelming numbers of requests to the computer that hosts that website. Worms have also been used to send out viruses to other computers, often without infecting the host machine–after all, what would it benefit the worm to shut down its host computer?
Trojans, in turn, are often used to insert worms and other malware on your computer, even if the Trojan itself does no damage.
But even if you don’t care what happens to anyone else, you should still be concerned about one kind of malware: spyware, a kind of malware that, true to its name, collects data from your computer and sends it back to a remote host.
Most spyware is only interested in monitoring your internet usage so it can tell other programs, called adware, what advertising to popup on your computer. However, there are criminal spyware programs that steal financial data, or perform a thorough identity theft. Don’t think you have personal or financial data on your computer? Some spyware programs contain a keylogger, which is a program that copies whatever you type, usually in order to snatch passwords. Even if you keep no financial information on your computer, if you ever buy anything over the web, the keylogger would allow its owner to buy stuff using the same information you typed in to buy stuff yourself.
Why Blame the Media?
Given the danger of all these different types of malware, isn’t it a good thing that the mass media are becoming hysterical about it? And can’t they be forgiven the sloppy reporting of calling Trojans, worms, spyware, and other malware “viruses”?
No, no, no.
This is a classic case of bad reporting doing more damage than no reporting at all. In this case, the damage bad reporting has done is to promote a common myth that goes something like this: “The only malicious software is a virus. Viruses damage your computer. Therefore, if my computer is working OK, my computer has no malicious software. I only need to scan my computer for problems when there is a sign of problems.”
Thanks to this myth, many people complacently let their antivirus software go months out of date, not wanting to be bothered with scheduling an automatic update. Just as bad, many people don’t have any extra software to combat the other types of malware that may not be covered by antivirus software.
In fact, it’s not uncommon for people who have found malware on their computers after a scan to say, “but I never had malware on my computer before!” But how would they have known if they had never scanned!
Until the biggest mainstream media–and especially television–start educating the public about the need to have their computers automatically scanned at least daily, the world will continue to have major, drawn-out problems with malware that could have been wiped out as soon as soon as the anti-malware software makers discovered it.
And until that day, the mainstream media will have many more opportunities to run hysterical stories about “viruses,” thereby forcing them to sell more newspapers and broadcast to even larger audiences of people who suck at the information trough yet somehow never become full.
Bobbi of Montreal, Canada was known in certain online crafting forums as the ultimate free sample troll. You were a crafting nonentity if you hadn’t received a sample request from Bobbi. In March 2004, I became an honorary member as the notorious Canadian finally paid me a visit. It was a simple missive with a subject heading that read: “samples.” Uh oh, that free sample troll, I thought. Yup, the brief text read: “please send samples and catalogue to: [address].”
As the owner of a handcrafted [meaning I make everything myself!] bath and body products site, I don’t send out free samples. Nor do I have a print catalogue. Obviously Bobbi hadn’t read my site’s policies section on my “About” page as it clearly stated that a free sample accompanied a paid order.
Last year on one of my soapmaking groups I went through the archives and learned that Bobbi of Canada was a legendary free sample troll. She prowled the ‘net in search of free soap, bath and body products, gourmet cookies, and small handmade gift items. Obviously Bobbi searched far and wide for freebies as one soapmaker posted this: “We got the same email…all the way over in Australia! I sent an email back letting Bobbi know that we were willing to provide samples as long as they covered the postage and handling and paid a $20.00 samples fee. No reply!”
However, while Bobbi was the first free sample troll to contact me, I soon became aware of others. I learned that free sample trolls were often proficient in doling out flattery. Here’s an excerpt from a Mavis of Florida: “Your products sound wonderful - would it be possible to request a catalog or brochure? Also, your coconut soap sounds absolutely enticing! May I request a small sample of this soap?” Wonder why ol’ Mavis was writing to me? That last sentence was the clincher - she wanted to ingratiate herself and by doing so get the ol’ something for nothing. It didn’t work though because my policy was a very firm - no free samples. As a soapmaker, I ran a small business not a large charity.
She wrote back requesting a special order product and when I gave her the quote there was no reply. Until a few months later. By now I had a fully working web site with a PayPal shopping cart. She didn’t use the shopping cart, instead sending me a request for some soaps, offering to pay for it via check [uh oh!] and wanting it sent regular mail in order to save $1.92. Naturally she expressed a wish for a free sample, even specifying which soap was to be the freebie. She ended her mock order with: “P.S. I wish I could buy more but at this time, it’s so hard. I just had a wedding for my daughter and the bills are piling up. So you know how that is.”
Actually, I don’t have any children, so no. But if the Floridian had just paid for a wedding, what the heck was an additional TEN DOLLARS including her discounted shipping?
Almost two weeks passed before she wrote back, using an excuse about her server going down. She revised her e-mail order [again, bypassing the shopping cart], lowering the amount to $7. A check was promised. It never came.
Free sample trolls devalue a product that often takes hours to craft, not to mention the amount of research and development that goes into creating that product. Time spent answering fantasy requests detracts from an online shop owner’s business earnings. Freebie hunters probably don’t bother to think about such incidental details. All they want is the gratification of knowing that someone gave them a product that they never intended to purchase. While some people genuinely are interested in buying a product and do need to try it firsthand, most of the serial free sample trolls only want something that requires no money or effort from them.
Last August Jennifer from Kansas contacted me: “I am a person with extremely sensitive skin that is in search of products that do not cause my skin to burn and itch. If possible could you please send me a catalog of your products as well as a few small samples for me to try. Any help that you can give me will be greatly appreciated. My address is:”
Upon receiving a pleasant e-mail about my no free sample policy and the fact that for a few dollars she could receive a product, there was no more correspondence from Jennifer!
The best example of a genuine free sample troll hailed from New York. Rather unusual was the fact that this troll was a man. “Hello, my wife is throwing a shower for about 100 people and would like to order a huge assortment of soaps, but since she has never tried yours before she asked me to ask for a few samples to try, so if you could send me a few samples, I would appreciate it. The shower is in 3 weeks so if you could get them to me as soon as possible, I would appreciate it. Joe S.”
The man wanted the soap favors supplied by various soapmakers from around the world for free! He contacted handcrafted soapmakers from Canada, Minnesota, Georgia, Oregon and even Australia! Mr. S. tried to cater to the greed factor by using the term “a huge assortment” and he also wanted not just a sample, but also “a few samples.”
As Mr. S. used his work e-mail address I was able to contact his employers who promptly took action and an apology was sent.
Meanwhile, Bobbi from Canada still trolls the internet in search of free samples as evidenced by this soapmaker back in June 2004: “I have gotten one from her. Wanting free samples and free brochures… Ummm one would think the site she just landed on and went straight to the contact page would have worked as a brochure…guess she was too busy to read…”
And here, by another crafter: “This gal was pretty obvious in trolling for freebies. This one basically just said give me, here’s my mailing address.”
The anonymity of the internet allows a ripe field of products to effortlessly harvest for those free sample trolls. But it also can enter the level of conning as evidenced here: “I am an associate editor for [name], a national magazine. I am interested in featuring your soaps in our holiday issue. I am especially interested in the wine soaps. Please let me know if you can send some samples.” Wanting to make certain this was legitimate; I called the magazine’s office to confirm the editor’s address and discovered that she no longer worked there!
One of the most thoughtful free sample requests occurred last autumn with this pleasant missive: “The products on your site look fabulous, we would love to see some samples for editorial consideration. My address is enclosed below. In the meantime, please let me know if you are interested in learning about the various promotional opportunities available on our site including our upcoming holiday gifts section.”
The free sample troll had now escalated into someone not only wanting gratis products, but also wanting money from me in order to further promote them on her site.
Last month I heard from Denise, another free sample troll who was apparently unable to click on links to products that were clearly listed. “I wanted to know if you have [name of product] as I have very dry skin and looking for a good product for this. If you do please let me know the prices for that.” I wrote back and gave her the links. She immediately wrote back: “Let me send in my orders then for the [name of product] and see how it works.”
Obviously that order never went through, as I didn’t get another e-mail from her. Just another free sample troll trolling for a freebie…
By Lisa Maliga
andcopy; 2005