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Network Solutions is represented by me  and Ben Cook our Search Engine Marketing expert. Conferences such as this help us keep in touch with the latest trends in online marketing, websites and ecommerce.

Day 1 started off with a Keynote by Tony Hsieh CEO of Zappos. Zappos grew from a small business selling shoes online to a Billion dollar company which Amazon acquired. ( http://blogs.zappos.com/amazonclosing ). Tony Hsieh clearly said that concentrating on company culture and defining the core values was the hallmark of success for Zappos. His advice is to concentrate on customer service, encourage all employees to use Twitterand be transparent.

The theme of Tony Hsieh’s talk was on “Delivering Happiness” also the title of  is forthcoming book. “What would you be happy doing for 10 years, even if you never made a dime?” Tony Hsieh asked the audience.Tony told me in a conversation ater his keynote that he had delivered the draft of his  book, “Delivering Happiness“, a few weeks ago to his publisher and is going to be published in 2010. he reads a lot of books and also told the audience that they can download a free copy of Tribal Leadership audio book he recmmends  from Zappos website: http://about.zappos.com/tribal

See more coverage of his keynote in this article by Amanda Finnegan Las Vegas Sun

The advantage of having a large number of bloggers at a conference is that there are several informative posts on the first day’s sessions and Search Engine Land did a great job making a list of Pubcon 2009 coverage of Day 1

I would like to recommend the coverage of the session Top Shelf SEO: Hot Topics and Trends by Lisa Barone

Pubcon Las Vegas Day 1: Twitter Sessions by Vertical Measures

Smart Keyword Research & Selection by Guillaume Bouchard

If you are here at PubCon Please say hi to me @shashib or Ben @skitzzo . Hope you will leave comments and questions on what you want us to cover when we go to conferences?

The  email services for customers impacted from yesterday’s issue should be back to normal. In cases where customers are still having issues we are advising them to contact our 24/7  Network Solutions Customer Support at 1-800-333-7680 or open a ticket on our support page at http://www.networksolutions.com/help/email.jsp

Update : Nov 4, 2009 @ 14:34

The email issue has been isolated to incoming email which is temporarily queued.  Network Solutions is working to restore inbound mail to normalcy.

We have resolved any issue with outbound email or the ability to send emails.  Also, only some email users are affected.

Nov 4, 2009 @ 13:32
Some Network Solutions email customers may be experiencing latency checking/sending email. You may also experience this using Web mail or if you are downloading your mail using tools like Outlook etc.

Network Solutions Operations is working to resolve this ASAP. Mail for these customers is currently being queued. We will update here as soon as we have more info Thanks.

Comments and feedback welcome at the Network Solutions Customer Feedback Site

Since joining Network Solutions about 6 months ago Tim has been focused on expanding Network Solutions’ product and service offerings, leading the company’s strategic marketing efforts and streamlining Network Solutions operations.  Tim came from Sprint/Nextel where he held a number of executive positions including President of Sprint’s Consumer Division where he had full operating responsibility of company’s largest business unit.

Miles Reidy joined Network Solutions as CFO in May 2009 from Sears Holdings Corporation where he was Executive Vice President and CFO. Mr. Reidy’s responsibilities include the finance function and now firm-wide operations including Customer Service. Roy remains Chairman and trusted advisor to the company.
With these changes Network Solutions is well-positioned to continue to excel at serving its growing client base. We have a number of important strategic initiatives in process as we continue to expand our range of offerings and further develop our services to our small business customers. Network Solutions has been gearing up by organizing and streamlining the business and building the infrastructure needed for continued growth and providing excellent value to customers.

a) Redirect this domain to my Linkedin Profile

b) Maybe start a new blog (Easy with Our 1-Click Install http://www.networksolutions.com/web-hosting/blogging.jsp)

c) Setup a website by adding this domain to my hosting package

You can check the offer out by going to http://marketing.networksolutions.com/dms/09Q3/INFO/index.php . Also give me other ideas on how I can use http://shashi.info/. If you buy a .info domain with this offer be sure to let us know by commenting here and we can brainstorm ideas or give you a link .

*$3.99 pricing applies for one year registration terms only.  Alternative savings apply for longer registrations terms.

*Shashi Bellamkonda is Network Solutions’ Social Media Swami

Because customers are spending more conservatively, they are pickier about what they buy. This means that they might spend as much as a month doing research online about a product before making a significant purchase.  Because of this, it is important to maximize impact in online search and get products visible to customers in the purchasing phase of the shopping process.

Pay Per Click advertising, commonly known as PPC, is the best way to target customers in the purchasing phase. By using keywords targeted to specific products, listing competitive prices, and incorporating other measures to optimize a PPC campaign, you can maximize your impact in an online search by appearing to potential customers who are ready to buy.

This is particularly important during the holiday season, as getting ad campaigns ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday can mean the difference between ending the year in the red or in the black.

The pros for PPC are many. Here are just a few, from Network Solutions’ Winning Clicks guide:

• Calculation – PPC is easily measured. Marketers are able to get raw numbers within seconds. Return on investment (ROI) and cost per acquisition (CPA) are easier to calculate than for traditional print and broadcast advertising.
• Cost – You only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
• Speed – Everything about PPC is fast. The campaign can be running in less than a day
• Timing – You can set up your ads to only run when you want them to.
• Targeted – You can easily tap your target audience by using the proper keywords and ad copy.

Network Solutions has a series of whitepapers available to help small businesspersons navigate the world of search engine marketing. The guide to driving sales using Pay Per Click is just one of the resources available from Network Solutions. Download this helpful resource, and others, today, and learn the basics of PPC, as well as the specifics of working with a PPC provider, different types of conversions, and how to get a good return on your investment.

Pay Per Click (commonly referred to as PPC) is the major advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, content sites, and blogs. With Pay Per Click, advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser’s website. PPC is a great way to attract new, targeted customers, and, if done right, can capture customers right as they are ready to purchase.

It can be tough to jump right into anything new, and PPC is no different. There are many factors to take into account in order to run a successful PPC campaign, and without search engine marketing experience, it can be very intimidating. For this reason, Network Solutions has created a series of whitepapers to help small business owners get started with the basics of their online marketing campaigns, and to learn more about the specifics that can spell out success.

“Winning Clicks: Everything You Need to Know About Pay Per Click Advertising” is Network Solutions’ primer on PPC, covering the pros and cons of choosing Pay Per Click and outlining the benefits of bringing in expert help to manage a successful PPC campaign. Those interested can download the “Winning Clicks” whitepaper here.

I think that happens a lot. Whether it’s someone new to online marketing or search engine optimization or anything else—a lack of familiarity can make it more difficult to begin anything. I can’t help but think that if my friend just knew more about the potential and the basics, she would at least entertain the option. How many people who now thrive online once felt confused by terms like organic search, search engine spiders, keywords, optimized content, meta tags, title tags and quality links?

In my opinion, familiarity breeds empowerment. It starts with having access to experts or resources that make it easy to understand new terms, new industries, strange practices, technical complexities.

Maybe my friend will find ways to build her dream business without going online. If so, more power to her. But I would love for her to be able to choose a broader target market if she wants to. There are lots of great resources that explain the basics about getting online and what you can do to get an online business found. Maybe I’ll just be the pest she’ll thank later and send a few resources her way. You never know!

If you know someone—or are someone—who is thinking about building an online business, you can familiarize yourself with some basic terms and concepts with this free white paper. Select the link below and get more empowered.

Getting Found Online - SEO Guide (more)

Focus on search engine optimization (SEO) results and get essential tips to help you make your website more naturally visible to search engines like Google® and Yahoo®.

Please take a few moments and check all your accounts – domain names, banks, utility companies etc to make sure you have the right email addresses listed there as contact email. Take the precaution of changing your email, username and password especially if you use one of the public email addresses. If you are the type of person who uses the same passwords at multiple sites and accounts, those account passwords should be changed as well.

In two earlier articles we had advised checking your contact email addresses:
Simple things to do to protect your domain name registration
8 Tips to Protect Your Domain Registration

If you are a early adopter of email, chances are you have changed quite a few email addresses since your internet life began. Your eventual solution hopefully was to move to email on a dedicated domain so you are no longer dependent on having to change emails even if you changed ISPs.

Prevention is always the better than cure.

This situation and others like it, reinforce the need for users to protect their email accounts.  If you have concerns about your email account, you are recommended to change your password as soon as possible.  If you are the type of person who uses the same passwords at multiple sites and accounts, those account passwords should be changed as well.

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/10/06/hotmail-phishing-attack-confirmed-20000-accounts-in-total

http://www.reuters.com/article/sarahPalin/idUS33422544820091005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8292928.stm

There may be other email addresses and subject lines being used.

The fraudulent letter looks like this

Dear <<Customer Name Removed>>,

We recently received an email from ICANN with a list of invalid emails on the WHOIS records of domain names registered with us. Since you have domain names registered with Network Solutions, we would like to remind you that ICANN has implied strict rules against having invalid whois information. Keeping such information could immediately lead to deletion of any domain name(s).
At this point, since the account registered under the name <<Customer Name Removed>> has invalid information, we will proceed to domain names deletion which will be available to the registry 45 days after deletion. In order to avoid this to happen we will need to verify you to that account.

In order to do that we will need the following information regarding the account where <<Customer Name Removed>> holds the domain names:
1. Confirmation of the current password used

a. please provide the password in your reply to this email

b. the password will then be reset for security reasons and a new password link will be sent to a valid email

c. if you do not know or remember the password, please follow the instructions below

2. Answer the Security question on file

a. Last Digits of the social security number?

b. Please provide the answer in your reply to this email

c. if you do not remember the answer, please follow the instructions below
We need to confirm you to the account before we make any changes. We would like to have a valid email we could use in the account too
Understand that at this point, and in order to avoid immediate deletion of the domain names, the changes need to be made from us directly so that we can notify ICANN that the new information is valid.

We apologize for the inconvenience.
Thank you for choosing Network Solutions.

Sincerely,

Tom Spencer

Network Solutions Security Department

Please take precautions, to verify the authenticity of the email and never forward your password via email to anyone.  Network Solutions will not ask for your password.

If you believe you have received an e-mail of this type and provided your password or answers to security question information, we recommend the following:

• login to your account
• review your account information for accuracy
• choose a new password security question and answer
• change your password

If you believe any of your account information has been altered, please contact Network Solutions customer service immediately at: 1-800-333-7680

If you have questions, advice or ideas please feel free to leave a comment here on this blog. Here are some other resources for learning more about Phishing:

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/identify.mspx

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt127.shtm

http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html

http://www.commoncraft.com/phishing