Web Academy

New mathematical research shows that there is a flaw in the security algorithms. While there is virtually impossible to break an established connection in some circumstances it is possible to predict the combination of keys being used to establish this connection. This information has raised a few eyebrows and many many questions about the security of online transactions. To date there is no evidence that any secure connection has been broken in transmission, it just takes too long to have it broken and information extracted. The same can be said about the prediction of the initial keys, by the time you can exploit the possibility of this prediction the transaction would be 3 years old and any opportunity to capitalize on the this information would be gone as well. This type of information is usually released when there is an update to the core system is being developed that no one wants to buy. Technically, the possibility of such a break in transmission is close to you winning the lottery 3 times in a row but someone has to sell a new / updated product so lets all jump onboard and concentrate on fixing something which is not broken for the fear of it being hacked by a mathematical genius taking 3 years in a process.

I believe that the online transactions are exceptionally secure and there is no need for any updates or reviews of the current infrastructure and protocols carrying the online shopping systems. There are much bigger dangers in the online business transactions than small flaws in the random number generation process. At the end of the day 99% of hack happen to the systems which are managed by people who sometimes forget the importance of proper maintenance.

Search engines formula changes and your business.

Firstly, let me say that all the updates that we have seen in the last few years have been marginal. Yes they have created some pain in the SEO community but none of them touched core 95% of the SEO. Search engines are finetuning the formulas all the time and they are under no obligation to tell anyone what they are doing. After all it is their trade secret – we will never know the reason why a particular result is at the top of the search. But what we do know is that a search engine is trying to emulate our own behaviour and this is where we have an advantage over it. Focusing on marketing copy and satisfying the informational requirements of the target audience will get all the points ticked from the content point of view and spreading the word across forums, article posts, directories and portals will get all the right ticks in the link building.  When you build your site with the solid content structure and expansion strategy then there is no reason to worry about how search engine formula changes will affect your ranking, if anything your ranking will be improved – it is all in the “how well you look after your customers” with the information you provide about your business.

Search in 2012

New year, new energy, new focus. As usual in the beginning of the year there are lots of survey results in various areas of marketing are being published. There are common themes among them – while everyone is optimistic about SEO efforts and is looking to see what the major search engines will do as the next step, there is an astounding increase in SEM activity. Most agree that 2012 will be the year of SEM expansion as early adopters reap more rewards and the rest of the market tries to play the catch up game. There are new strategies that are being put forward especially in the areas of branding and brand recognition. Social media is playing an increasing role in branding and with so many outlets and options available, SEM strategies are becoming to look like complex labyrinths with plenty of dead ends and twists and turns – time will show which of the bold new approaches are viable and which will go down in history as online mega flops. One of the fastest movers in the SEM space will be SMO. We are still exploring and learning how social media works with brand association and product placement but this year we will push for distribution of many marketing ideas into this area to capitalize on the increased popularity of this medium.