Category: Et Cetera

Let’s say you are looking at a product on the Currys website.

You wish to read reviews about this product or want to compare prices and availability from other retailers around the web. What would you do? Copy the product’s name and paste it into a Google search tab?

Now, imagine seeing the following message when you press the Ctrl + C keys or the Copy option in the context menu.

We’ll match our competitor’s price.
Remember, if you can find this item cheaper elsewhere, we’ll match our competitor’s price – even after you bought from us.

Isn’t that brilliant? The moment you copy the product’s name, they know that the chances of getting your order is very slim. Currys can’t stop you from leaving their website. But they sure can try to persuade you to buy from them through this gentle reminder of their Price Match Promise.

Technically, the message is non-invasive. It doesn’t throw up a JavaScript based Alert box. The colour and size of the container are subtle, but the message is strong.

This surely is a creative user experience feature by a retailer who competes against the retail giant Amazon.

I Googled “North Face Shoes“. Millets Outdoor Store flashed an advertisement, offering an additional 15% off by using a coupon code!

I clicked (costing Millet a click) the link and visited their North Face landing page. I added a North Face shoe to the basket and applied the voucher code “REDHOT“. I was greeted with an error message:

Unfortunately an error has occured
This coupon expired on 29 Jun 2015

Problem 1 – Expired Voucher Code in an Advertisement

So, the voucher code expired on the 29th of June 2015. Someone must have forgotten to set up the campaign to end on the 29th of June 2015. Now they waste click costs on bringing potential customers to their website and turning them away.

Problem 2 – Spelling Mistake

Occured is a misspelling of occurred. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/occured

I do not know if Millets have an agency managing their PPC campaigns or if it is managed in-house. The above example shows us that even big brands with big agencies could fail on simple terms.

Looking through a client’s Google Analytics ‘matched search queries’, I noticed that there was a lot of (not set) keywords. I spoke to Google’s Adwords Support – (United Kingdom – 0800 169 0409 – 9 a.m. to 6 p.m GMT Monday to Friday).

They said that there was some problem at their end and their engineers are looking into it. They were not able to give a timeframe for the fix, but suggested that it might take a week or two. They also assured me that the historical data will be available once the system is fixed.

I started giving a little attention to the Facebook Ads that appear on the right hand side of their website. Something odd caught my attention. Designers Sunglasses UK by The Shabby Sheep? UK Designers Sunglasses by Monogram International, Inc? I clicked on the Facebook page links and they opened up fan pages that had nothing to do with Sunglasses! What! Wait a minute… I clicked on the ad title. Both the links took me to websites that looked exactly the same but with different business names.

The Shabby Sheep’s fan page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Shabby-Sheep/146223385417120
The target website: http://www.sunglassestradeoutlet.com/featured_products.html

Monogram International, Inc’s fan page: https://www.facebook.com/MonogramInternational
The target website: http://www.sunglassesfit.com/featured_products.html

I performed a Google search and read about various blogs that criticise Facebook for not quality controlling display ads that appear on their website. Facebook’s ad platform is not a newbie! Surely, by now they should have developed algorithms to root out scamsters? Maybe it is a temporary glitch in their advertising network? Has anyone else noticed such false ads on Facebook?

Early this week, Google implemented a notice message to let it’s searchers from the EU know that they are using cookies on their website. This notice comes after the pressure from EU to get Google compliant under the EU’s Cookie Law.

The notice says that by using Google’s search searchers are agreeing to allow Google to store cookies on their devices.

Sitting in my inbox today was an email from a friend on Twitter. The direct message read, “Really horrible blog about you, might want to read this…“.

I am aware of emails that go out to people with a very tempting statement and then request that they click a link to read about it. Even though I am aware of such practices, I was tempted to click this link. I do blog from time to time and the fact that someone might be saying horrible things about me was quite shocking. I was very tempted to click the link. However, I decided to go into Twitter and check out my friend’s wall. The friend had posted a status where she mentioned that someone had hacked her account and sent these nasty messages. What a relief! I was so close to clicking on the link.

Updates – Similar Messages:

• Hey guess what? i got to test and keep an iPhone 4S this rocks u should get one!
• Bad blog going around about you, have you read it yet?
• Someone is posting a pic of you all over Twitter

Spam! Delete and disregard it.

Firstly, I create a helper and name it as MY_form_helper.php. This file will go into the application/helpers directory. I have extended the Form Helper as I will be using the country drop down select box in my forms.

You might receive an email similar to the one below. This is a spam email to make you click on a link that looks like it will take you to Twitter’s website, but actually redirects you to http://mexico.cnn.com/redirectComplete.php?url=//twitterfreeoffers%2Eus%2Etc/965gs

Your twitter account [email protected] has been suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service. Your account was suspended for aggressive following and tweeting. Following large numbers of users and tweeting too much in an attempt to attract attention to your own account can be annoying to other users and is a violation of the Twitter Rules http://twitter.com/rules. Suspension of your account will be effective at anytime. To avoid permanent suspension just complete our twitter free offers below. Click here to complete some offers.

Always hover over suspicious links and look at the browser’s status bar. You will see the destination link at the bottom left hand corner of the web browser. Keep safe.

Every now and then, Facebook gets a bit naughty and tries to push its limits. The recent image recognition feature that was rolled out without warning is one example. The following is a case that I’ve seen on both Facebook and Google. From time to time, visitors will see a page like this…

Facebook thinks that my account’s protection is low! In the RED :( Oh my God! I need to do something about this. What should I do? Give my phone number to Facebook. Yes! Yes! That’s how I’ll keep my account safe…

In my opinion, Facebook is just hungry for personal information. They can’t stay satisfied with all the information that we’ve already given, and they want more. Yes, using mobile verification one can restore a hacked account and all that rubbish. The point here is the warning signal. “Your Protection (Red Bar) Low”

While social media can be helpful and fruitful, we should also be aware of how much control they possess over our lives. I love Facebook for its core idea (bringing together your social network on the internet) and it’s for FREE! My only concern is the naughty tricks that they pull.

Solution
Just click on the Not Now link to bypass this splash page.

Suddenly from this morning onwards, I’ve been getting this strange screen for most Google searches. I’ve never seen this is in the past and I’ve already seen it about 5 times today!

To continue, please type the characters below

Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it’s really you sending the requests and not a robot. Why did this happen?

I’m using Google Chrome as my browser and always search using the omnibox. Any suggestions?